


Straws In The Wind

by i_claudia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Break Up, Community: paperlegends, Falling In Love, Fights, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Merlin Big Bang Challenge, Serious Injuries, Sexual Tension, Skiing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 74,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin meets Arthur when Arthur runs him over on the ski slopes. Everything goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for paperlegend's 2011 round and originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/76801.html). (28 August 2011)
> 
> Please go [here](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/217811.html) to see chosenfire28's beautiful art. There's also an ebook download available [here](http://pressipice.livejournal.com/3527.html) or [here](http://pressipice.dreamwidth.org/3387.html), courtesy of the lovely snottygrrl.

:::

_I don’t care if Monday’s blue  
Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too  
Thursday I don’t care about you  
It’s Friday I’m in love_

_Monday you can fall apart  
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart  
Thursday doesn’t even start  
It’s Friday I’m in love_

:::

 

Merlin’s minding his own business when it happens, making his slow, careful J-turns down the slope—he enjoys snowboarding, but he isn’t what you might call a natural, not when he can only afford to get away every few years, and even then only to a tiny little hill near where he grew up if there’s snow—when some idiot comes screaming down the hill out of nowhere, cutting right in front of him in a whirl of poles and flashing goggles. Merlin has just enough time to register the red jacket, the shaped helmet with the basher bar sticking out in front, before he’s tumbling head over arse down toward the tree line.

He comes to a slow stop before he hits the pines, at least, and takes a moment to make sure all his limbs are still attached, that he hasn’t lost his gloves or broken a rib or anything. His ears are cold, and when he reaches up to tug his hat down further down he discovers it’s missing, probably fallen off somewhere up the slope, and now he’ll have to hike back uphill and try to find it.

He’s looking around for it, hoping it hasn’t gone too far or disappeared—he could try finishing the run without it, since he has another back at the condo, but he’d really liked that hat, it was blue and covered his ears well and his mother had _just_ given it to him for Christmas—when there’s a shower of snow all over him and the hat lands in front of his face, a bit snowy but otherwise intact. Merlin looks up: the fucking red-jacket skier had pulled a hockey stop purely for the pleasure of making Merlin more miserable. 

He picks up his hat and jams it on his head, glaring up at the man. “A gold helmet, really?” he asks, because there’s full of yourself, and then there’s just _tacky_.

“Watch where you’re fucking going,” red-jacket says, and Merlin can’t see his eyes through the mirrored goggles but the man’s mouth is thin and angry, like all this is _Merlin’s_ fault, and isn’t that just the icing on the fucking cake. “God, snowboarders, you all think you own the fucking mountain. Watch yourself or you’ll hurt someone.”

“ _You_ watch yourself,” Merlin snaps back, furious, but the man is already moving, using his poles and the v-step Merlin’s seen other skiers use to get their momentum going before he tucks his feet together, bends closer to the snow, and speeds away.

“Prick,” Merlin yells after the man, which doesn’t really make him feel better but soothes his wounded pride a little. He wipes his nose and flips over onto his knees before standing and settling back into the familiar rhythm, wending his way down to the lodge, where Gwen and Freya are waiting with sympathetic ears and overpriced hot chocolate.

The next time he sees that skier, Merlin vows, he’ll get his own back. Trip the man up, see how well _he_ takes a tumble and a face full of snow. 

*

The next time Merlin sees the skier turns out to be the next day, at the top of one of the black diamonds. He’s not wearing the red jacket anymore—it’s been replaced by some sort of thick red cape which reaches to his boots—but Merlin would recognize that gold helmet anywhere. Merlin wants go over and give the man a piece of his mind, but he’s surrounded by other people, all skiers, and Merlin doesn’t fancy his chances against a whole horde of them, not when they’re sporting mirrored goggles and sharpened poles in funny curving shapes. It’s like some secret ski mafia meeting, he thinks, and then he sees the starting hut and the flags dotting the slope below.

A racer, Merlin thinks. Of course the tosser is a racer; he probably calculates points with his mates—this many points for hitting a snowboarder, this many for a small child or an old lady, this many for an entire beginner’s class.

Merlin almost wants to shout out something spiteful, just to mess with the guy, but there’s an older man with him, their heads bent close in a conference, and one look at his face convinces Merlin he doesn’t look like the type to let hecklers live very long. Merlin contents himself with sending all of them a bitter, vengeful look, and goes to look for a good spot to watch the race. Maybe the man in the gold helmet will miscalculate a turn and wipe out, he thinks hopefully, and Merlin will at least get to have a good laugh; he has less than an hour before he’s supposed to meet everyone for lunch, and with the lift lines as long as they are he isn’t going to be able to make another run anyway.

It doesn’t take much time for Merlin to find the bottom of the course, where a crowd has already gathered to watch technicians fiddle with wires and an enormous electronic clock which refuses to show anything but a gigantic neon green _88:88:88_. Merlin sits to take his board off and trudges to the plastic netting that serves as a fence, looking for a good spot. 

“Good weather,” a woman near him remarks after a few minutes, but when he turns to reply she isn’t even looking at him: she’s addressing the older man Merlin had seen at the top of the course with the idiot skier.

The man says something about the snowpack and the direction of the wind that Merlin doesn’t entirely follow, and the woman smiles, looking back up the mountain.

“You worry too much, Coach,” she says. “Your boy’ll do just fine.”

“Of course he will,” the coach says, as if he’s surprised by the assumption that he’d been at all anxious. “Arthur is the best.”

He says it simply, matter-of-fact, and wow, Merlin can see where red-jacket—Arthur, he’s assuming—gets his attitude from now. He wants to eavesdrop more, but the technicians have cleared their equipment from the finish line in a rush and everyone is turning to look up the hill, and when Merlin turns to squint at the mountain himself, someone’s already coming down the course, flying smooth and low across the snow, curving so tightly around the gates that the poles slap the snow. Merlin can’t see exactly how the skier’s hitting the gates—his shoulder, maybe, or maybe he’s actually punching each post as he goes by—and he doesn’t know much about how a skier should look, but he can tell this guy is good, really good. He’s _fast_ , every motion controlled and deceptively smooth; it doesn’t look like he’s moving anything but his legs, his torso steady as his knees tilt close to the snow. It looks effortless, like someone’s dream of flying.

The skier’s halfway to the finish when Merlin realises that it’s Arthur, and he sighs, because of course Arthur is brilliant at what he does despite—maybe because of—being an arsehole. “Figures,” he mutters, and pulls his hat lower over his eyes, slouching when Arthur tucks in low to his boots and zooms over the finish line. He watches a few more skiers, but it turns out that watching races is boring and makes his feet cold, so he puts his board back on and ends up fighting with Lance over the last space on the board rack outside the lodge, tackling him to the ground only to get a snowball down his own back. 

“You play dirty,” he accuses Lance afterward, while they make their way into the lodge, and Lance grins, pulling him into a playful headlock.

“So do you,” Lance says, and Merlin, arms flailing, is forced to grudgingly concede the point.

“Only because you do,” Merlin grumbles. Lance only pats his hair soothingly and doesn’t loosen his grip. “I’m going to tell everyone you’ve been abusing me secretly for years.”

“I didn’t know it was a secret,” Lance remarks, and adds, to someone not Merlin, “Hey there, gorgeous. Room for one more at this table?”

It’s Gwen who replies: “Oh Merlin, what did you do?”

“What did _I_ do?” Merlin squawks. “What did this big bully do, is more like it!”

“Come on, Lance, let him up,” Freya says, and she’s prying open Lance’s arm, helping Merlin out and upright.

“The lines are terrible,” Gwen says while they move helmets and mittens and balaclavas to make room for Merlin and Lance at the table. “We already bought some chilli for you, and hot cocoa.”

Merlin reaches for the cocoa Freya hands him eagerly, wrapping his fingers around it and bringing it close to his face, inhaling the steam with pleasure. Gwen laughs at him, tucking a few flyaway strands of her dark, curly hair away from her face. 

“I thought you’d like that,” she says. “You’ve not stopped drinking cocoa since we arrived.”

“That’s not true,” Merlin disagrees, smiling. “I’ve been drinking wine, too.”

“One glass,” Freya says, shoving her shoulder into his affectionately. “And then you sang everything you said for the rest of the night.”

“It was more than a glass!”

“One and a half,” Lance says, and Merlin scowls, mock-serious.

“You are all delusional,” he decides, but he can’t keep up the façade long when they’re all laughing.

“Eat your chilli,” Gwen tells him, and Freya pats his shoulder, and after an exaggerated sigh Merlin sets his cocoa down and pulls the bowl toward him.

“Spoon?” he asks, and Freya and Gwen turn matching beatific smiles on him. “God, fine; you two are terrible,” he grumbles, and slides off his chair to go find spoons for all of them.

The lodge is packed with the lunch crowd, all of them loud and bulky with snowsuits and clunking awkwardly around in heavy boots, and it takes Merlin the better part of ten minutes to locate the plastic spoons and grab a few napkins just in case before he can work his way back to their table, where he finds that someone has drunk half his cocoa. He gives them all a plaintive look, and refuses to hand over the spoons.

“Come on, Merlin,” Lance wheedles, but Merlin shakes his head because Lance is his number one suspect: Gwen is too nice to drink his cocoa, and Freya is a vegan.

“Merlin, you are only here because I invited you,” Gwen says, stern, and Merlin sighs and hands her a spoon. He gives Freya hers after a moment’s thought, but it takes death threats and an arm-wrestling game (Merlin loses terribly, all three times,) before he finally, grudgingly, hands Lance a plastic spoon.

The chilli isn’t great, but it’s warm and filling after a day in the cold, and Merlin’s eating it with three of his favourite people in the French Alps, where none of them have ever been before, because after Gwen won the trip she decided to be the most wonderful person in the world and bring the three of them—Merlin and Freya and Will, who is somewhere pretending to be a professional on the terrain park and probably taking headers into snow banks—along with her and Lance instead of using the money she’d been given on the Christmas shopping spree it was intended for. Altogether they speak three words of French and none of them are very good at skiing or snowboarding, (except for Lance, who at one point, Merlin is pretty sure, competed in the X-Games or something,) and they’re only two days into the ten they have at Camelot, but Merlin’s already certain it’s the best holiday he’s ever had.

They split up again after lunch: Gwen and Lance go off to explore the further side of the mountain despite Merlin’s warning that they’ll likely break five bones each trying to negotiate the moguls, and Freya’s taking a class with a ski instructor she says is fantastically talented and drop-dead gorgeous besides.

(“She’s maybe eighteen,” Gwen points out, because Gwen had gone with Freya on the first day and had met the instructor. “ _Maybe_.”

Freya shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I can’t _appreciate_ her,” she says, and waves a pole cheerfully as she skis away.)

Merlin is all set to potter around the slopes for another afternoon, aimless, taking new trails just to see where they end up, and of course, he thinks in disgust when he comes around one narrow bend to see the racecourse laid out below him again, of course he winds up right back in the path of Arthur the arse.

The race is still going, which Merlin can hardly believe—how many times do the racers have to go up and down the same damn course?—but the next time he goes down the slope out of curiosity things seem to be wrapping up, and he joins the crowd just to see what’s going on.

There’s a little podium set up, a pair of skiers already standing on the two lower platforms, and there, just stepping up in between them and bending his head to accept the medal some bundled-up official is placing around his neck, is Arthur, unmistakeable in his red jacket, even with a black fleece hat pulled low over his ears instead of the helmet. Merlin notices that his hair is bright, gold to match his helmet and the medal and shining brilliantly in the sun where it’s sticking out from underneath his hat, and dismisses the thought quickly as irrelevant. What does it matter what colour Arthur’s hair is? He turns his back resolutely just as Arthur is raising the medal to his lips, and sets off in what he hopes is a direction which will take him far away from everything that has to do with Arthur.

*

He’s successful for three glorious days in escaping the circle of Arthur’s influence and undoubtedly enormous ego, and mostly forgets about Arthur entirely—he’s a git but Merlin has other things to worry about, like having fun and not hitting any trees with his face—until he stumbles into the little lodge halfway up the mountain to thaw out one afternoon, because the wind is vicious, bitterly cold, and it’s looking like snow, and Merlin doesn’t fancy himself as a human-sized icicle. This time there’s no one to fight over the rack with, and when he runs out of momentum before he reaches it he hops along awkwardly before giving up and just taking the board off, trudging the last few metres to the lodge and then inside.

Unfortunately, he discovers, everyone else out on the slopes had the same idea he did: the little building is full of frazzled parents with whining offspring and only slightly more composed older kids—Merlin supposes they’re the same age he is, more or less, but they always seem like kids, careless with their money and their unbroken bones—staring out the window and arguing over the conditions.

He looks around fruitlessly for a minute, but eventually he just grabs a cup of overpriced cocoa and plops down at a table with mittens and a jacket turned inside out scattered over the top. There’s some other stuff piled up on one of the chairs, but Merlin doesn’t really pay attention, too focused on curling his stiff fingers around the hot mug to try and warm them up.

“This table’s taken,” someone says from behind him, and Merlin cranes his head around to see—

Of course, he thinks wryly. Of course the universe thinks it’s funny to have him sitting at the same table Arthur has claimed. Arthur’s wearing a thin red fleece—is everything he owns red? Merlin wonders—which does nothing to hide the muscles in his shoulders and biceps, and it’s more difficult than it should be for Merlin to look away.

“There’s nowhere else,” Merlin says, turning back to his cocoa while Arthur makes his way around to the other side of the table.

“It’s _taken_ ,” Arthur repeats, scowling. “Move.”

“Unless there are four of you,” Merlin shoots back, “and you need all of these chairs, I’m staying.”

“I was here first.”

“What are you, six years old?” Merlin demands. “There’s _nowhere else_ , and I’m not moving until I can feel my toes again.”

Arthur slams his tray down on the table. “I’m not moving, either.”

“Good for you,” Merlin says, and occupies himself with actively ignoring Arthur while Arthur mutters and stabs his sandwich apart to peel off the tomatoes with a fork and shoots Merlin dirty looks. Merlin pretends not to notice any of it, and also pretends not to notice that Arthur’s eyes are blue and that his jaw is unfairly chiselled. 

After a while Arthur subsides into a sullen silence, and when Merlin looks up next the windows have turned white. He curses under his breath, and Arthur raises an eyebrow at him. 

“What, you’ve never seen a snowstorm before?”

“Of course I’ve seen snow before.”

Arthur makes a sound that manages to convey exactly how little he trusts that assertion, and Merlin seriously debates moving his cocoa to a nearby table, which is overflowing with a boisterous family speaking a language Merlin doesn’t recognise but is at least free of snobbish prats. He’s about to say something—no doubt it will come out snippy and at a toddler’s level of logic, but it will put Arthur in his place nonetheless—when Arthur speaks first.

“It won’t last long,” he says, authoritatively. “It’ll snow all night, but there’ll be a break in the storm soon; you’ll have time to flee to whatever hole you crawled out of this morning.”

Merlin, caught between glaring and rolling his eyes, says instead, “Who died and made you the weatherman?”

“I’ve been skiing at Camelot since I was born. I know the weather here.”

“You mean you’ve been running people over here since you were born,” Merlin corrects. “God, I bet you were, weren’t you? Three years old and probably already knocking little old ladies off their skis and breaking their collarbones.”

“I was not,” Arthur snaps. “And you didn’t break anything.”

“We’re not talking about me, and anyway, how would you know?”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” Arthur says, giving Merlin a dismissive look. He lingers a little, and Merlin has a moment to wonder if maybe—but then he blinks and remembers that this is Arthur, the ski racer, who runs innocent snowboarders over without a moment’s thought and then showers them with snow while they’re on the ground.

“You can’t resist hitting things in your way,” he tells Arthur, pointing a finger at him. “You can’t fool me; I watched you race the other day. You hit every single one of those flag things on your way down.”

Arthur stares at him. “The gates?”

“Flag things,” Merlin agrees.

“You’re _supposed_ to hit them,” Arthur says. “It’s called cross-blocking.” Merlin shrugs, taking a sip of his cocoa.

“Figures,” he says. “So much for thinking skiing was a nonviolent sport.”

“It—” Arthur starts, then stops. “Hold on. You watched the race?”

Merlin shrugs again. “It was there. I was on the same trail. I didn’t realise you were in it at first.” It’s not quite the truth, but Arthur doesn’t need to know that.

“Right,” Arthur says, raising an eyebrow and sitting back with an expansive motion, propping an elbow on the empty chair next to him. “So? What did you think?”

He’s clearly expecting Merlin to say something admiring; Merlin wonders if anyone has ever criticised him about anything. He has a particularly haughty sort of arrogance that Merlin suspects cannot be achieved except with constant unconscious cultivation and the help of lots of obsequious friends. A chronic sort of malady, Merlin thinks, and one he can’t hope to cure alone with fifteen minutes of sitting at the same lunch table, though he’d like to take a crack at it.

He gazes thoughtfully at the ketchup bottle in the middle of the table for a moment, and comes to a decision.

Arthur has quick reflexes, and he realises what’s happening sooner than Merlin anticipated, but even as he ducks the ketchup hits him squarely in the face, smearing over his cheeks and forehead and dripping down onto his eyelids. There’s a moment where Arthur doesn’t move and Merlin can’t quite believe he’d actually squirted a ketchup bottle at another adult in public—though that has no impact on the giddy pleasure he gets out of the experience—and then Arthur wipes the worst of the mess out of his eyes and fixes Merlin an angry, expectant look, as if he’s waiting for an explanation.

“It goes with your uniform,” Merlin points out helpfully, and Arthur growls,

“That’s it; you are _dead_ ,” before grabbing the mustard bottle in turn, and then they’re really going at it, firing back and forth, until there’s ketchup on Arthur’s neck and mustard all over Merlin’s jumper (which is really Freya’s, she’s going to _kill_ him,) and they’re both laughing too hard to stop.

“You are such a tosser,” Merlin informs Arthur, wheezing, putting the ketchup bottle aside but not letting go of it in case Arthur has any last-minute sneak-attack plans, and Arthur manages a serious face for all of two seconds before he has to put his head back down and laugh.

“You started it,” Arthur says when they’ve both calmed down a little, and Merlin smiles.

“All in the name of great justice,” he replies, and that dims Arthur’s answering smile a bit.

Arthur glances at the table for a moment, running his finger through a stray line of ketchup before saying, “I didn’t mean to hit you the other day, truly.”

Merlin sort of figures that, but he isn’t about to let Arthur off easily—his rental board isn’t damaged, but if it had been... Merlin’s looked at the rental policy and the penalties for returning a damaged board, and they don’t bear thinking about. “I’ll take the apology under consideration.”

“How generous of you,” Arthur drawls, plucking a few napkins from the table and mopping more ketchup from his fleece. “You are a paragon of virtue, aren’t you—?” he stops, looking at Merlin. “I don’t even know your name. You insult me and cover me in ketchup, and never bother telling me who you are.”

Merlin puts a hand out to shake, more out of habit than anything else. “Merlin.”

“I’m Arthur,” Arthur says, taking Merlin’s hand, and Merlin replies before he thinks about it.

“I know.”

Arthur is giving him a sly look before Merlin realises what it sounds like, and he hastens to add: “Oh, stop that; I saw the award ceremony, you prat.”

“Of course you did,” Arthur says, sounding smug and insufferable and managing to make it sound like of _course_ everyone has heard of him and wants a piece of him, and Merlin is no exception. Really, Merlin doesn’t know why he even _bothers_ with these sorts of people, even if they are inevitably too attractive for their own good, and wow, there’s a thought he has to stop immediately.

“So tell me, oh illustrious one,” Merlin begins, but then a woman spills hot soup all down his back, and his witty comeback is lost in the flood of _ow ow fucking ow_.

He’s wearing three jumpers against the cold, but the soup soaks through all of them and the most he can do about it at first is an embarrassing sort of frantic wiggle away with his shoulders which does nothing to stop himself being burned from neck to arse. Somewhere behind him the woman is gasping and apologising in French, but Merlin ignores her in favour of stripping all the jumpers off until he’s down to the thin black undershirt of his long johns. 

He cranes his head over his shoulder gingerly, trying to get a look at the damage; he can’t see much from this angle but the skin feels tender; he definitely doesn’t want Lance to clap him on the back any time soon. Jesus, he thinks, how hot does this place _heat_ their soup? He’s pretty sure there are international laws against serving food which could be used as a weapon, and if there aren’t there _should_ be.

Occupied with making sure there are no oozing blisters on his back and that he has no actually charred flesh, it takes Merlin a moment to realise that Arthur’s stood up and is in the process of explaining to the woman how monumentally stupid she is. He can’t actually understand the words Arthur is saying, but the meaning is clear enough in his narrowed eyes, in the way he’s leaning forward, aggressive and protective all at once.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, because he’s a little touched ( _in the head_ , he can hear Will’s voice say, and yeah, okay, he won’t argue with that,) but he’s not comfortable seeing the woman get her just desserts when those desserts are making her cry.

Arthur doesn’t hear him at first, and Merlin has to repeat, louder: “ _Arthur_ , enough.”

“—et pour cette raison...” Arthur breaks off, blinking at Merlin, as if he’s already forgotten the reason for his tirade. Maybe he just likes yelling at people; Merlin wouldn’t put it past him. “What?”

“I don’t need you to defend me,” Merlin says, watching the woman seize her opportunity and slip away. Arthur tracks her through the crowd, his shoulders still back and set, as if he’s going to follow her and harangue her until he’s actually driven her out into the snow.

It only lasts a moment, though, before Arthur shakes himself and sits back down. “Well, obviously you can’t defend yourself,” he says, picking up his sandwich again. “Someone has to do the job.”

“I can defend—” Merlin starts, annoyed, and stops. He can already tell that argument will go nowhere. “Where did you learn French?”

“My mother taught me,” Arthur says shortly, and there are blinking lights all around the way he says that telling Merlin to _get the hell away, idiot_ , and so Merlin does. 

“Tell me, weatherman,” he drawls, stealing one of Arthur’s fries and thoroughly enjoying the look on Arthur’s face, “when will it be safe for those of us who are not actually immortal to go out into the blizzard?”

“It’s not a blizzard,” Arthur tells him, and Merlin gives him an exasperated look. “A blizzard would be—oh, look, fine, it should lighten up soon; I think it already is. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Merlin asks, turning around to look out the window. It’s true; the snow has died down considerably, but the clouds are still hanging low and dark, and Merlin eyes them unhappily, because one way he absolutely does not want to die is frozen somewhere between the treeline and the shuttle to the little condo he’s staying in.

“If you go now you might make it,” Arthur says. “Where are you staying? The lodge hotel? There should be just enough time—”

“Avalon,” Merlin says absently, squinting at the window still.

“ _Avalon_?” Arthur sounds incredulous. “Never mind; you’ll have to sleep here tonight.”

“Huzzah,” Merlin mutters, and takes a gulp of his cocoa. Stupid mountain with its stupid _snow_ ; Gwen’s making her famous vegan spinach lasagne tonight, and Merlin is going to miss his chance to steal the best bits while she’s cooking.

Arthur’s quiet for a moment while Merlin puts his head down on the table and wonders whether clicking his heels three times might work, but then he clears his throat.

“Look, come home with me. My place isn’t far.”

Merlin tips his head up so that his chin is resting on the smooth wood of the table, and lets his eyebrows express how terrible an idea he thinks that is. “Go home with _you_?”

Arthur shifts, shrugs his shoulders. “It would reflect poorly on the resort if you died in the snow, and you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll kick you out at closing, that’s why.” 

“Even if I’ll die in the snow if they do?”

“With you?” Arthur’s glaring now, and it’s doing some deliciously terrible things to Merlin’s insides. “They’d definitely kick you out.”

Merlin can feel his willpower fading. “I’d fight them.”

“You couldn’t fight a housefly,” Arthur scoffs, and grabs his jacket. “Come on, put your clothes on. You’re coming to my place.”

“You know,” Merlin points out before he can help himself, already reaching for his jumpers. “Usually that’s the other way around: I go to your place and take my clothes _off_.”

“Piss off,” Arthur grumbles, and when Merlin doesn’t stop grinning Arthur punches him while Merlin is still tangled in the sleeves of a jumper.

“Prick.”

“Idiot.”

“Arsehole.”

“Come on,” Arthur says, collaring Merlin by the nape and pushing him toward the door. “Less name-calling, more moving. I am saving your life, you know.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, fluttering his eyelashes while he jams his hat on. “Thank you _ever_ so much, my lord.”

Arthur blushes a very interesting colour, Merlin notices, but before he can say anything rude back they’re out in the storm, with the wind snatching at their clothes as it tries to find every exposed part they’d forgotten to cover.

“It’s this way!” Arthur shouts, pointing with his pole once Merlin’s pulled his board out to the trail. Merlin nods, and follows Arthur down the mountain. He can tell Arthur’s going purposefully slow, though whether it’s all due to Merlin or because the snow makes it hard to see very far in front is up for debate, and Merlin’s too grudgingly grateful he can keep up to spend much time composing barbs in his head about it. The snow stings his face and gets in his eyes, and the wind is trying to blow him into the trees, and Arthur is probably right, Merlin thinks resignedly: he would never have made it to the condo.

It turns out that Arthur hadn’t been lying when he said his place wasn’t far; Merlin isn’t exactly sure how far they go but it can’t be more than five or ten minutes before Arthur’s turning off the trail, making his way through a few thickly needled pines and literally skiing up to what must be his door.

It’s a two-storey wooden cabin with something Scandinavian in the design, but it has enormous windows and a wide porch, and when Merlin finally gets the board off his feet and carries it up the steps after Arthur he can’t help but notice the huge outdoor Jacuzzi, recognisable even buried under two feet of snow.

“Seriously?” he asks while Arthur pats down his own pockets in a squirming motion Merlin easily identifies as the _where the fuck did I put my keys_ dance. When Arthur glances at him, Merlin raises an eyebrow and repeats, throwing a hand out to encompass the house and Jacuzzi both, “ _Seriously_?”

“What can I say,” Arthur says, distracted. “I’m excellent at what I do.”

He probably has metric tonnes of cash sitting around in Swiss bank vaults, Merlin thinks, and then notices with a tiny vicious satisfaction that money clearly doesn’t solve the eternal problem of _needing keys_.

“So when you said you were taking me home, I was envisioning something a little different,” Merlin says conversationally. “A little wine, maybe, a fire, your terrible attempts at flirting; not freezing my extremities off and dying in the snow...”

“Shut up,” Arthur says, but there’s an edge to his voice. “Christ, patience is a virtue, didn’t your mother ever tell you that? I just have to find my keys, they were right here—”

“Oh, shove over,” Merlin interrupts, pushing Arthur out of the way with his shoulder because maybe Arthur has his keys and maybe he doesn’t, but the snow is coming down harder again and Merlin is not getting hypothermia this close to safety. “Do you have a paperclip?” he asks hopefully.

“No—you are not _picking my lock_ , Merlin.”

“Fine. But it would have worked.”

“It would _not_.”

Merlin steps back to survey the house. “Any low windows that might be unlocked?”

“What? No, what is wrong with you? I am not breaking into my own...” Arthur trails off, looking thoughtful. “Actually,” he says, and the smile he gives Merlin makes all sorts of alarm bells ring in Merlin’s head, “there might be one possibility.”

Five minutes later, Merlin is hanging by his fingertips from an upstairs window, and Arthur is laughing hysterically.

“I hate you,” Merlin yells down, blinking snow out of his eyelashes. “I hate you _so much_.”

“To the left,” Arthur calls back, his voice weak and shaky from laughter. “It’s a little—more, more, there!”

Merlin has the roof under his feet again, but that fact does not make him any more favourably disposed toward Arthur. “I am going to make you dangle off a building and see how _you_ like it,” he mutters, inching up toward the tiny window and then wiggling in after forcing it open. It isn’t a dignified process, and he can still hear Arthur nearly weeping with laughter down below. “I am going to make your life _miserable_.”

He has to walk himself carefully in on his hands, arms trembling as he keeps himself from falling into the toilet bowl and then from braining himself on the sink, but finally he’s inside, and he takes a moment to lie on the tile floor and savour the warmth before standing up to shut the window.

The bathroom is boring—thick creamy towels, basic shower with silver taps, a sink with a toothbrush balanced precariously on its rim—and Merlin doesn’t waste time investigating while he clumps out into the hall and down the stairs. The second floor is more of a loft than anything else, he realises; the whole cabin is made up of simple lines and bare polished wood, with colourful rugs and a few paintings scattered here and there. It’s the kind of house that only subtly announces how much money it costs, in the curve of a chair or the appliances in the kitchen, instead of screaming it from every ornamented and unnecessary throw pillow.

Interesting, Merlin thinks, before he distracts himself by pretending not to hear what Arthur is saying through the front window.

“Sorry?” he says, adopting a puzzled expression while Arthur throws a fit outside. “Did you say you were going to take another run? I’ll just stay here and look after the house for you.” He waves cheerfully, and Arthur presses his face—dangerously red with fury—close to the window and yells something that might be _no one will find your body_ or maybe _I am fond of lollies_.

Eventually, though, Merlin has to open the door, and Arthur wastes no time in hauling him outside and shoving him face first into a snow bank.

“No wonder you have so many friends,” Merlin says after he’s staggered back upright and darted inside before Arthur can lock him out. “Your personality _sparkles_.”

“You were going to lock me out of my _own house_ ,” Arthur points out, but Merlin shrugs that off.

“Your keys would have turned up eventually,” he says, hanging his coat and still-wet jumpers on the row of hooks next to the door.

Arthur snorts, pulling his feet out of his boots. “I should have left you on the mountain to die.”

“Too late now!” Merlin says, positively jolly, and Arthur shoots him a half-hearted glare.

“I’m going to change my clothes,” he says, moving toward the stairs. “Don’t destroy anything while I do.”

“I was going to start in the kitchen and see what damage I could start there before moving on,” Merlin calls up after him. “I thought maybe a grease fire would be fun.” 

“I mean it, Merlin! I will cut off your ridiculous ears and mount them on my wall!”

“Not if I hide all your knives first,” Merlin says, but he doesn’t bother making his voice loud enough to reach upstairs. He wanders instead after taking his own boots off and leaving them next to Arthur’s, snooping in the refrigerator—Marmite, really?—before tracing his fingers over the back of the leather sofa and discovering the flatscreen telly that somehow magically folds out of the wall. Christ, Arthur really _is_ a rich bastard.

“Here.” Arthur’s voice comes from behind him, and something soft hits him in the back of the head. “Your things must be wet; use these and hang your stuff to dry.”

Merlin turns and finds a tangled pile of clothing at his feet. He thinks for a moment about refusing, but the shirt of his long johns is damp with soup still and his wool socks are soaked. “Thanks,” is all he says, and gathers the clothes up.

“I’d say don’t ruin them, but I grew out of those things years ago; they’re the only things I could find that might fit your scrawny body.”

“Does it physically hurt you to be nice?” Merlin demands, and goes off to find the bathroom again before he can ask why Arthur’s looking at his body.

He changes quickly—warm, dry socks, track pants, a long-sleeved shirt that’s soft in the way only things that have been worn and washed and loved for years can be—and when he pads back down the stairs Arthur is busy building up the fire.

Merlin flops down on the sofa, enjoying the soft feel of the leather and the way Arthur jumps and chokes at the noise. “Careful,” Merlin advises. “I wouldn’t want you to singe your eyebrows off or anything.”

“Bastard,” Arthur grumbles. He sits back as the fires catches, licking hungrily to life, and Merlin doesn’t look at the way the light glows along Arthur’s hair. He certainly isn’t impressed by the fact that Arthur can start a fire with his own bare hands. 

“So you say you’re good at what you do,” Merlin says, as a thought occurs to him. It’ll serve him right if Arthur’s part of the Mafia or some underground gambling ring; maybe he’s only being nice because he’s going to drug Merlin and sell him into slavery. “What exactly _is_ it that you do?”

Arthur shrugs. “I ski.”

“I mean your real person job,” Merlin says, rolling his eyes. “I mean, when you aren’t here using the mountain as your own personal obstacle course—”

“Hey!”

“—what is it that you do with your life?”

“My _real person job_ ,” Arthur says, speaking slowly and using his fingers to put mocking air quotes around the words, “is, as I said, to ski.”

“To ski,” Merlin repeats, sceptical.

“I race competitively.”

It surprises Merlin, truly; he’d known abstractly that some people must dedicate their lives to sport, football stars and Olympic swimmers and whoever, but he’d never thought of them _only ever doing_ the things that made them famous. “Really? That’s your job?”

The grin Arthur gives him is a little crooked, the tiniest bit self-deprecating. “Even without the deals I make with companies to sell their products, all the sponsorships and so forth, I still probably wouldn’t have had to work a day in my life.”

“Oh God,” Merlin says in mock-horror, because he’s known this man for something like three hours and he can already see that talking about money makes Arthur uncomfortable, “you’re one of _those_ people.” He lets his head fall back dramatically. “I am probably decreasing the property value of your house as we speak, just by touching it.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Arthur says, laughing, and uses Merlin’s knee to lever himself up. “Cuppa?”

“If you’re really going to serve to commoners,” Merlin says, and adds, more fervently, “ _please_.”

He props his chin on the back of the sofa and watches Arthur in the kitchen, moving about with the kettle in his hand and a practiced, easy air around him. It’s still awkward that Merlin’s hanging around in the home of an almost total stranger, but it isn’t a bad sort of awkward, not really. There’s something almost comfortable about being here with Arthur, the snow still swirling furiously outside and building up along the windowpanes while Arthur asks him about milk and sugar.

“Thanks,” he says when Arthur hands him a steaming mug and sits down next to him. “How did you get into skiing, then?”

“It was important to my father,” Arthur says, “and then it turned into something that was important to me.” He sips at his own tea. “What do you do, then? Run a professional housebreaking business?”

“Of course,” Merlin deadpans. “I come from a tragic past—broken home, boyhood criminal record, the works—and I pass the time by robbing the rich blind to feed the poor.” He rolls his eyes. “Nah, I’d be bollocks at that. I work at a chemist’s.” He doesn’t mention that Gaius is his uncle as well as his employer, though from the sound of things Arthur is hardly in a place to say anything about nepotism.

“A chemist’s,” Arthur says, widening his eyes. “How simply fascinating. And let me imagine, you live in some droll little country town a hundred kilometres away from anything resembling civilisation, where you already know everyone’s prescriptions before they bring them in, and charming housewives bring you tins of biscuits twice a week?”

“Twat,” Merlin says without heat, and spends a moment being a little horrified when he recognises the particular shade of fondness in his tone. “No, in London. Where do you live, here? Because if you do, I don’t think you could make fun of me even if I did live in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not all the time,” Arthur hedges, and Merlin puts his feet on the couch, twisting to nudge a heel against Arthur’s thigh, not quite a kick.

“Go on then, I already know you’re filthy rich; tell me about your manor house on the moors and your summer cottage in the south of France and the yacht tied up somewhere in the Greek isles and the tiny fifteen-bedroom place in Bali...”

Arthur’s laughing before Merlin gets to the yacht; Merlin thinks he could get to like the way Arthur laughs, head thrown back to expose the skin stretched thin over the curve of his throat, sounding delighted and surprised at his own warmth.

_Stop that_ , Merlin tells himself sternly, and scalds himself on the tea to pull his mind back to what Arthur is saying.

“It’s not as bad as all that, it’s only this cabin, a house in London...”

“Oh, _only_ ,” Merlin says.

“...and fine, so there is the one place in France, but it’s a dump, really.”

“Of course it is. I’m sure it’s terrible. The Queen would never think of visiting you there.”

“We asked her to tea once,” Arthur says, voice hushed and solemn. “She refused the invitation. It was a terrible embarrassment for the family.”

Merlin nods along for a moment, as grave as Arthur, but when their eyes meet he can’t keep up the pretence, sniggering helplessly and nearly spilling his tea all over Arthur’s lap.

“Shit,” Arthur says, still gurgling with laughter as his phone rings. “I have to get that; it might be a while. Can you entertain yourself for a minute? The telly’s there if you want to watch something.”

Merlin looks between it and the remote warily. “I’m afraid I’ll accidentally program it to release the attack dogs or start World War III or something.”

“Oh no, that’s the other remote,” Arthur says with a wink, grabbing the cordless handset and ducking out of the room. Merlin sets his tea down very carefully, waits a moment to make sure Arthur isn’t going to come back in, and pushes his face into a throw pillow, wondering if he can suffocate himself just enough to be unconscious until the snow lets up and he can escape. 

Merlin knows he has a type. He’s enough of an adult by now to admit that, and it’s his own fault that his type is mainly cocky bastards with nice shoulders and a sense of humour. That means nothing, he orders his libido sternly. Arthur still probably plucks the wings off of butterflies for fun, which is unacceptable behaviour, and Merlin can’t allow himself to be swayed by the discovery that maybe Arthur is a human being after all.

Arthur closets himself up with the phone for the better part of an hour, which soothes Merlin somewhat because it means Arthur is probably on the phone with his girlfriend, saying all sorts of terribly sexy things to her, and Merlin is therefore free to like Arthur without worrying about whether he wants to snog Arthur against a wall, because there’s no chance of that ever happening. He gets bored enough to take a chance on the remote after about fifteen minutes, and is inordinately pleased with himself when nothing blows up and he finds an Iron Chef marathon without having to change the channel once.

“So do you like to cook, or do you just take vicarious pleasure in watching other people make poisonous things into something passing as real food?”

Merlin tilts his head straight back and nearly jumps out of his skin when he finds Arthur’s come up right behind him, the sneaky bastard, and has a hand braced on either side of Merlin’s shoulders on the back of the sofa.

“Maybe I’m secretly an Iron Chef,” he says, shuffling himself around to look at Arthur properly and trying to paste a mysterious expression on his face.

Arthur snorts. “You’re more likely to end up as the secret ingredient. What do you fancy for dinner?”

Merlin bites his tongue before anything wildly inappropriate can slip out. “That depends. Do you have tiny elves that come out at night and do all your cooking for you? Because if you’re cooking, I might choose starving over death.”

That earns him a swat on the head. “I am a perfectly capable cook,” Arthur says. “Just for that, maybe I won’t give you anything at all.” He stalks off again, and Merlin follows him, sliding onto a chair in the kitchen and pulling a leg up to prop his chin on his knee.

“I see,” he says speculatively. “You’re breaking class and gender stereotypes by putting yourself in the kitchen. Or did you just figure it’d help you get a shag?”

“I am going to pretend you never said that,” Arthur tells him, arranging ingredients on the worktop. “Maybe I just like cooking.”

Merlin narrows his eyes. “You’re cooking pasta from a box,” he points out. “All you’re really doing is boiling water.”

“I never said I liked cooking _that_ much.”

“I have been lied to,” Merlin says, looking at Arthur with soulful eyes while Arthur puts a pot on the hob and pulls a wine bottle from somewhere beneath the worktop. “I have been led terribly astray, and I shall never recover.”

Arthur scowls, pulling the cork out of the bottle with a practised hand. “Shut up and drink this,” he says, pouring Merlin a glass of wine. “Maybe it will make you less insufferable, Christ.”

“I see how it is,” Merlin sighs. “Having failed to charm me, you’re turning to alcohol to make me blind to your lack of basic human decency. How very underhanded of you.” He takes the glass of wine, though. No sense in turning it down.

“I have lots of decency,” Arthur says. “Just not for you.”

“I bet that line gets you all the girls,” Merlin replies, and adds, before he can think better of it: “Did you use it with your girlfriend; is that why she calls you every night?”

It’s comical, Merlin thinks, how suddenly horror transforms Arthur’s face, twisting all his features to the right and squishing them together. “So,” he says innocently, enjoying the way Arthur seems to be twitching a little and beyond words, “not your girlfriend who called you?”

“No,” Arthur manages. “No, Merlin, that was not my girlfriend. It was my _coach_.”

Merlin shrugs philosophically, thinking of the older man at the race and hiding his own appalled expression. “You know what they say: to each their—”

“My coach is my _father_ ,” Arthur interrupts, his voice climbing uncomfortably close to a screech, and Merlin can’t resist.

“Kinky,” he says, a little strangled, and then he’s laughing too hard to say the rest of the words he had planned, and Arthur has him in a headlock, messing with his hair and threatening to lock him outside again until Merlin is dead from exposure.

“No one would ever miss you,” Arthur threatens.

Merlin beats at Arthur with his fists, uselessly. “Lies,” he says. “Gwen would miss me terribly.”

“Girlfriend? She’s probably planning to kill you as we speak.”

“ _Not_ my girlfriend,” Merlin says, gripping Arthur’s arm and trying to pull his head free. “Best friend. Maybe I’ll just leave and go back to Avalon; she’s cooking vegan lasagne tonight, and I bet it’s better than any slop you make...”

Arthur lets him go, and Merlin retreats back to the stool, rubbing his neck and glaring. “Vegan lasagne?” Arthur asks, slow, like he doesn’t think he heard Merlin correctly.

“Yes,” Merlin says defensively.

“Vegan—Merlin, that takes all of the best parts of lasagne out of the lasagne. There is _no way_ it is better than my cooking.”

“Suit yourself,” Merlin says, trying to get his hair to lay flat again, and watches out of the corner of his eye while Arthur shakes his head and turns to the fridge. “It’s quite good.”

“Raised by wolves,” Arthur tells the contents of the fridge, sorrowful, and produces a hunk of ground beef. “Obviously you have never known true food. Pass me the pepper, will you? And make yourself useful; I need that onion chopped.”

“I hate onions,” Merlin grumbles, which isn’t true, but he grabs a knife from the block and sets to work—carefully, because Arthur’s knives are exponentially sharper than his own, and he’s afraid he might cut his whole hand off if he isn’t careful. It’s quiet after that, both of them moving around the kitchen while the food cooks and Merlin’s stomach growls. Arthur finally shoos him out after the fifth time he catches Merlin peeking at the sauce, wondering if Arthur would notice if he just had a _little_ taste.

“Set the table,” Arthur says, pointing Merlin toward the plates, and Merlin makes a face but goes, taking the opportunity to pour himself another glass of wine and breathe air that doesn’t smell as much like Arthur.

“Is this a new kind of torture?” Merlin inquires, watching as Arthur engages in a variety of fiddly little activities which seem to have no point except make Merlin wait. “Cooking dinner and never serving it?”

“Patience is a virtue,” Arthur says absently, but he turns off the gas. “Help me carry things.” Merlin takes the pot of spaghetti from Arthur, ignoring the little tremble that zips through him when their fingers brush. “I’m just going to get the parmesan...” he trails off, and Merlin turns around to see Arthur giving him and the spaghetti a distressed look. “Cheese,” Arthur fumbles when Merlin furrows his eyebrows in a silent question. “I—are you really vegan?”

“Arthur,” Merlin says patiently, crossing his arms. “I just spent the better part of an hour helping you make a sauce which has a pound of meat in it, and you’re only _now_ asking me if I’m a vegan? Because of _cheese_?”

Arthur opens and closes his mouth a few times, and says, “Yes?”

“You’re hopeless,” Merlin tells him, but he’s smiling. “Give it here and sit down before I have to hurt you.”

“As if you could,” Arthur grumbles, but he hands the cheese over and pulls a chair up to the small table across from Merlin, close enough that their knees brush under the cheerful chequered tablecloth.

The spaghetti is good: the kind of solid, warm food Merlin’s mother had always approved of, and Merlin eyes what’s left over after he can’t take another forkful without risking stomach explosion, wondering if he can maybe sneak off with it tomorrow when Arthur isn’t looking. They drink most of the wine and talk about whatever comes to mind: about sport (Arthur follows cricket with a single-minded religiosity that would be frightening to Merlin if he wasn’t laughing so much), and whether or not the world economy is completely doomed (Merlin’s a cautious optimist; Arthur probably has an underground bunker safe house ready somewhere), and at one point Merlin realises he’s been ranting over the latest NHS scandal for a full twenty minutes and still Arthur is nodding along, looking a little bit lost and a little bit amused and a little bit lovely. 

“Er,” Merlin says when he catches himself and trails to a stop. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s fine,” Arthur says, “I’ll just consider it as early payback for when I start talking about what a nightmare putting the wrong wax on your skis is.”

Merlin knows there are a hundred things he could say to that, but he takes a sip of wine instead because he can’t think of a single one of them. He takes another sip when he notices the look Arthur is giving him, considering and very nearly predatory, the kind of look Merlin might confuse with—

“Are you finished?” he asks, hopping up and holding his hand out for Arthur’s plate. “I suppose I’m on dish duty.”

“I’ll help you,” Arthur says, taking his own plate to the sink. He takes the plates to dry them after Merlin washes them; Merlin knows he’s scrubbing the pots perhaps a little harder than necessary, but Arthur is standing close, too close for Merlin not to leap to hopeful conclusions when their fingers brush every time Arthur takes a dish from him. Merlin clings to the tiny voice of reason that says it’s only the wine speaking, but every time Arthur’s shoulder bumps his own it becomes progressively more difficult to believe.

He’s reminding himself of all the reasons doing what he wants to do is a bad idea when he hands off the last pan and turns to snag a towel from Arthur.

Arthur doesn’t bother wiping the pan dry, merely setting it aside; he’s facing Merlin, and when Merlin turns they’re body to body, close enough that Merlin can feel Arthur’s chest brushing his own, can feel Arthur’s breath faint against his skin.

“Uh. Hi,” he says, hardly daring to think—

“Hi,” Arthur replies, low, the barest flash of teeth beneath his smile, and Merlin knows he’s fucked.

“I need a, uh, a towel,” he says, his voice wobbling the slightest bit. “Could you, maybe—”

The kiss isn’t entirely unexpected, but it startles Merlin anyway, enough that his hands are already fisted in Arthur’s shirt to pull Arthur even closer by the time he remembers that this is probably a bad idea. He’s going to pull back, he is, but then Arthur’s hand slips around to Merlin’s back, sliding up under the borrowed shirt to skim his fingers along the sensitive skin above Merlin’s waistband, and Merlin shivers further into the kiss. It isn’t the filthiest kiss Merlin’s ever had, isn’t the best, would barely register on the scale of great kisses, but Merlin’s melting into it anyway, into the taste of spaghetti and wine still on Arthur’s tongue—and beneath that the slightest hint of something Arthur alone might taste of: Merlin wants to chase that to its source, dig deep into Arthur and maybe not let go again. Arthur has him by the hips, the heat of his hands burning through Merlin’s borrowed trousers. The worktop is digging uncomfortably into Merlin’s lower back, and Merlin’s arms are squashed awkwardly between their bodies while Arthur bends him gradually backward, and still he can feel himself on the cusp of foolishness, the brink of giving more away than he should—

Arthur pulls back, rests his forehead on Merlin’s while they breathe. He doesn’t loosen his grip on Merlin’s waist. “We shouldn’t,” he starts, and stops. “Not that I don’t—it’s only...I don’t know that I can stop. It’s not a good idea.”

“I know,” Merlin says. He does know, because if they go any further he’ll go to his knees right here in Arthur’s kitchen.

Arthur takes a breath. “I don’t want you to think—I didn’t bring you here for this. I didn’t mean to do that; you shouldn’t feel like you’re...” He stops, shaking his head, and Merlin thinks he catches a glimpse—for a moment, the barest of flashes—of something fragile in Arthur’s expression, something more delicate than spun sugar and gone just as quickly. “I usually don’t lose control like this.” 

It’s good to hear that Arthur feels something like the shuddering heat in Merlin’s veins, that it’s only interfering scruples holding him back. “I’m not the kind of girl who puts out on the first date, anyway.” Merlin says, and pulls back to crook his mouth at Arthur in a dirty smile.

Arthur chuckles, flexes his arms like he wants to pull Merlin close again before letting go, letting his hands drop to his sides. “Even after I cooked you dinner?”

“Especially then,” Merlin says, straightening and fussing with his sleeves. “I have to make sure I’m not dead from food poisoning in the morning before I let you ravish me.”

“Such a mistrustful man,” Arthur replies, walking past Merlin close enough that their knuckles brush. Merlin bites his lip—still warm from the kiss—and looks out the dark window, where he can’t see the snow that must still be falling. He takes the time to wipe the sink down, exhaling a slow breath, before leaving the kitchen to see Arthur making up the couch.

He hangs back, fingers tangled behind him where Arthur can’t see them, lingering in the doorway until Arthur has finished plumping pillows and distributing blankets and whatever else he’s making himself busy doing, and looks up to meet Merlin’s eyes.

“I don’t have a spare bed,” he says, apologetic; Merlin wants to say _we don’t need one_ , but there’s a look in Arthur’s eye that says now is the wrong time to push. “The sofa’s comfortable enough, though.”

“Thanks,” Merlin says.

Arthur hesitates, then puts the pillow he’s holding down and walks around the sofa, putting a hand on Merlin’s arm just above his elbow and pressing he lips to the corner of Merlin’s mouth. Merlin turns his head into it, looking for one more taste before he pulls back.

“Good night, Arthur,” he says, reaching for Arthur’s hand to give his fingers a soft squeeze, which is all he thinks he can permit himself.

Arthur squeezes his hand back. “Good night, Merlin.”

Merlin watches Arthur pad upstairs, and once he hears the door close he lets himself collapse face first onto the sofa, not bothering to turn down the blankets first, wondering when he became the kind of person who followed arrogant strangers to their houses and didn’t follow up on trying to get a handjob out of the deal at least.

He’s awake a long time in the unfamiliar darkness of the cabin, squirming until he’s made a precarious nest around him of pillows and blankets, staring at the fire as the embers die down. He doesn’t know a thing about Arthur, but that bothers him less than not knowing why the kiss happened: whether it was Arthur experimenting or Arthur taking what he saw as due to him or something else, any number of possibilities Merlin almost feels might be possible. It isn’t until past midnight that he finally drifts off, no less confused but almost willing to take a kiss as a kiss and let it rest as that: a onetime gift.

*


	2. Chapter 2

:::

_I'm in over my head  
You got under my skin  
I got no strength at all  
In the state that I'm in_

_And my knees are weak  
And my mouth can't speak  
Fell too far this time_

:::

 

Arthur is already making pancakes when Merlin wakes the next morning. Merlin’s shoulders are a little cramped but that ache fades quickly with the promising smell of frying things in the kitchen. He sits up, unwilling to push the blankets back because it’s cold, and also _early_ , what maniac gets up this early on holiday?

Then he remembers that this isn’t technically a holiday for Arthur and pulls a sour face, directed at all those self-satisfied prats who have too much money and use it to wake up people who have to work for a living at an ungodly hour when aforementioned working people don’t have to be out of bed.

Arthur doesn’t see the expression, because he’s too busy dancing: he’s put on a terrible wailing pop song and is bobbing his head along and shuffling his feet across the floor, doing atrocious, unspeakable wiggles with his hips. At least, Merlin thinks they’re supposed to be hip-wiggles—he gets distracted when Arthur actually flips the pancake he’s cooking using the pan, tossing it high and catching it perfectly.

“I didn’t think people in real life could actually _do_ that,” he says, and Arthur sets the pan down to turn around and grin at Merlin.

“Morning,” Arthur says, and then: “Get your lazy arse up and ready, you’ve slept late.”

“Late?” Merlin asks, squinting at the clock hanging across the room. “It’s not even seven yet.”

“Lifts start running at eight,” Arthur says, sliding the pancake neatly onto a plate. “Also, your breakfast is ready.”

“It’s _still dark outside_ ,” Merlin points out.

“Do you want to let someone else have all the good powder first?” Arthur demands. “That is not a winner’s attitude, Merlin.”

“I’ll show you a winner’s attitude,” Merlin mumbles into the back of the sofa, but he slowly extricates himself from the delicious warmth of the blankets and stumbles around looking for his clothes.

He mostly forgives Arthur when the there is coffee to go with the pancakes, and the betrayed expression on Arthur’s face when Merlin steals the last banger leaves him in an excellent mood until they reach for the orange juice at the same time, their fingers bumping together. Arthur flushes, dull scarlet rising up over his throat to low on his cheek, and pours Merlin’s glass first when Merlin lets go.

“Thanks,” Merlin says, and Arthur nods without looking, concentrating on his own glass of juice. 

The silence stretches just long enough for Merlin to shift awkwardly and drop his fork, and then Arthur says, “I apologise—”

“Don’t,” Merlin interrupts. He doesn’t want to hear Arthur apologise for the kiss, blame it on wine or the storm or anything but the two of them drawn together. “We had a nice night, yeah? It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

Arthur looks miffed. “I wasn’t going to imply anything of the sort.”

“Oh.” Merlin picks up his fork again, looking cautiously sideways at Arthur. “What were you going to imply?”

Having finished his breakfast, Arthur has one elbow hooked over the back of his chair, scraping the tines of his own fork slowly across his plate. Their legs are touching again under the table, Arthur’s socked foot brushing Merlin’s ankle, and Merlin resists the urge to kick him until he talks. “I only wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” 

“What page is that?”

“ _Mer_ lin.”

Merlin doesn’t budge, even when Arthur looks at him like he’s the densest thing since lead weights. He cuts another bit of pancake and sticks it in his mouth, stubborn. “I’m not psychic.”

“The page,” Arthur says, “where I stopped kissing you last night not because I didn’t want to.” 

“I gathered _that_ ,” says Merlin, because he is capable of putting two and two together and coming up with four. 

Arthur shrugs. “So I’m not opposed to it.” He seems to think this explains more than it actually does. Fortunately for both of them, Merlin is intelligent despite his lack of telepathic powers.

“So you wouldn’t be opposed to it happening again?”

The pattern of the tablecloth is suddenly fascinating to Arthur. “Probably not,” he decides.

“Oh, _probably_ ,” says Merlin. “What a vote of confidence.” There’s a smile trickling out of him, though, because he can read Arthur well enough—and when the hell did that happen, he wonders—to see through the studied nonchalance to Arthur’s own small grin. The urge to punch Arthur in the face is still lurking just beneath Merlin’s skin, making his fingers itch, but he wants to make Arthur smile, too, bigger and brighter; wants to learn what makes Arthur tick.

“I see how it is,” Merlin announces, finishing his last pancake with a flourish. “You need me around to take care of your ego.”

“I think you’re more likely to break my ego,” Arthur says drily. “You’re not very good for it, you know.”

“On the contrary,” says Merlin. “I am _excellent_ for your ego. It is obese, and I am apparently the only one willing to deflate it.” He sticks his finger in the syrup left on his plate before sticking it in his mouth without thinking, and Arthur’s eyes go slightly unfocused before he leaps up, whisking the dishes away to the sink.

“Your gums will rot if you do that,” he tells Merlin. Merlin grumbles something about Arthur having given the syrup to him in the first place, and tries to stare slightly less obviously at the bit of Arthur’s neck where his hair curls down just behind his ears. 

They brush their teeth together because Merlin gets the bathroom first but Arthur refuses to let him have it, bumping elbows. Arthur makes faces in the mirror at Merlin, and Merlin slimes him with toothpaste foam, balancing the spare toothbrush Arthur had given him next to Arthur’s own without thinking. 

He sneaks a look in Arthur’s room while Arthur is still gargling. The sheets are rumpled, red plaid and flannel and looking divinely soft, and Merlin has a terrible urge to rumple them more, to see if they smell like Arthur and if they do, what exactly Arthur smells like. There’s a pair of broken poles in the corner, boots and jumpers on the floor, books scattered around; it’s the only room in the cabin Merlin could call messy. One book is propped open on a pillow, and Merlin squints at the title. It’s in German, he thinks: he makes it as far as _Das Rennen_ and _Lebens_ before he’s distracted by the enormous poster hanging over the bed. 

It’s a skier—male, Merlin’s pretty sure—tucking in close around a gate. There are insets of smaller photos at the bottom, mostly of the same blond, broad-faced man with big shoulders and a square jaw, and Merlin’s studying them when Arthur comes up behind him.

“Hermann Maier,” Arthur says, breath tickling Merlin’s ear, and Merlin jumps.

“Who?”

“He won the overall title in the World Cup three times,” Arthur explains. His voice is soft, reverent, as if he’s talking about a saint, not some guy who’s famous for going very fast down a hill. “Fifty-four victories total in the Cup, actually. Three time gold medallist in the World Championships. Gold at the Olympics. He crashed in ’98, at Nagano—went through two layers of netting, it was terrible, everyone thought he was finished—and he walked away. Won the Super G and GS a few days later. He almost lost a leg three years after that, and still managed to win the World Cup after he was done with therapy.”

“Impressive,” says Merlin, though he’d understood about half of it. “Do they call him the Herminator or something?”

“Only sometimes,” Arthur replies, and cuffs Merlin on the shoulder. “Come on, you’re wasting time. It’s almost eight and you don’t even have your boots on.”

Merlin wants to point out that neither does Arthur, but Arthur’s already thumping down the stairs, taking them two at a time, so Merlin only sighs and pads after him, already regretting the way the time is slipping away from them.

*

They start out together toward the nearest lift, sliding quiet down the freshly groomed trail by themselves, staying close without following each other, not another soul in sight despite the other cabins they pass. The morning had dawned clear and cold, the trees laden with a new thick layer of snow over their dark green branches, everything sparkling brightly enough for Merlin to pull his goggles down over his eyes.

The lift, when they reach it, is one of the ancient two-seaters that’s slowly being pushed out of resorts everywhere in favour of the newer superchairs, four across and longer, designed to get as many people up the mountain as fast as possible. Those chairs are more comfortable, Merlin knows—for one, they don’t have the stupid bar hanging down for skiers to rest their skis on and for snowboarders to get tangled in—but something in him thrills at the chance to ride this chair with Arthur, jerking slowly along up the mountain and probably stopping three times along the way to hang in place for a moment or minutes, knocking snow from his board or Arthur’s skis down onto the trail below. 

There’s no line, but Merlin’s momentum doesn’t quite get him to the lift; he hops awkwardly along until, embarrassed, he’s forced to concede defeat and frees one of his feet to push himself along to where Arthur is waiting. The lift operator, chin sunk deep into his scarf and more occupied with his thermos of coffee than checking either Merlin or Arthur’s tickets—Arthur has a season pass, Merlin notices, a plastic card with his picture strapped to his left arm with thick elastic, instead of the ticket Merlin has stuck to his zipper and which flaps around when the wind blows, slapping his chin—barely nods at them before the chair is behind their knees, lifting them away.

“Thanks for waiting,” Merlin says, once they’ve settled themselves and negotiated lowering the safety bar, Merlin shifting until he can prop his board on the ski-rests without risking falling off. “Sorry about the hopping. It’s a drawback, not to have both feet free.”

“It’s boring riding a lift alone,” Arthur replies, crossing his arms to lean on the bar and letting his poles dangle from their wrist straps. “Besides, you should have seen me the one time I tried it.”

“ _You_ rode a snowboard?” Merlin asks, half-incredulous and half desperately wanting to hear anything embarrassing about Arthur. 

Arthur laughs. “Against my father’s express wishes, too. It was terrible, terrible. I’ve never had so many bruises in my life.”

“I don’t believe you,” Merlin says. “Weren’t you born clutching skis or something?”

“Yes, _skis_ ,” Arthur stresses. “Sensible things, two boards strapped to your feet and pointing down the hill, which let you have control over where your legs go and let you see where you’re actually going. Not one board attached to both feet sideways, which is only navigable by moving your body in strange, awkward ways, and which leaves you stranded the moment there’s a flat stretch of trail.”

Merlin sorts through this for a moment. “So what you’re saying is that you were a miserable failure at snowboarding.”

“I said nothing of the sort. Snowboarding is for arseholes who can’t manage a pair of skis. I merely prefer the sport of kings.”

“I’m pretty sure that isn’t skiing,” Merlin says. “And snowboarding is much more exciting than skiing; it is young and hip. You’re just an old fogey who can’t stand to see other people having fun.”

Arthur pats Merlin’s head with more force than necessary, regarding Merlin with a deeply woeful look. “I am sorry you refuse to see the light; you must be a terminally confused young man. I’ll have to sacrifice you to the mountain gods when we reach the summit.”

“Not if I sacrifice you _first_ ,” Merlin points out, and things only devolve from there, until they’re both warm out of breath from laughing, half-collapsed against each other when the chair comes creaking up to the end of the lift. Arthur poles smoothly away once he touches ground, and Merlin manages to avoid both falling and being hit by the chair as he pushes himself to follow, which he counts as a win, and then they’re looking at each other, Merlin wondering what comes next. 

“I have to meet my father for practice,” Arthur says; he might look apologetic, though Merlin can’t tell beneath the mirrored goggles. “Did you want to meet up for cocoa later?”

“Sure,” Merlin says, biting at the corners of his lips to keep them from turning up. “Where did you want to—”

“The midway lodge, same place you invaded yesterday? Around two?”

“Midway lodge at two,” Merlin replies. “I’ll be there. And I didn’t _invade_ , Christ, do you ever let go of a grudge?”

Arthur flashes him a smile. “Rarely,” he says. “In your case, though, I might make an exception.” He’s gone before Merlin can reply; dipping down over the steep edge of the trail and curving away, back to being the faceless racer with flawless technique. Merlin watches him go, until he realises that he hadn’t gone back to the rented condo last night, and had never let anyone know where he’d gone.

“Shit,” he says, sighing, and sets about making his way back before Gwen can send out search parties in earnest.

*

He takes the shuttle back to Avalon, trudging through the main lodge parking lot to the bus stop, his board balanced on his shoulder, the new snow already turning grey underfoot from salt and sand. Camelot is a sprawling resort: Avalon is touted as the latest in green, eco-friendly design, one of its newest condominium complexes and also, bizarrely, one of the farthest from the main hotel and lodge. Merlin picks at a tear in the plastic covering of his seat in the shuttle and gazes out the window as the driver announces the stops. They’re all small, tasteful collections of buildings, brightly painted and clumped together in the thick woods which dominate most of Camelot, all looking very much the same.

For a moment when the driver says “Avalon,” over the crackling intercom of the bus, Merlin toys with the idea of just staying on the shuttle until it goes back to the lodge, but he’s already here and it isn’t as if he can avoid his friends forever. He gets off and grabs his board from the rack on the outside of the shuttle before it rumbles on, and he climbs slowly up the wooden stairs to the condo. At first he raises a mittened fist to knock, but after a moment’s thought he tries the door handle to see if it’s open, wondering if he can sneak in unseen and make it look like he’s been there the whole night. 

It’s not that he has anything to be ashamed of—he’s done worse and been more open about it—but before he’d always known where he stood, how to tell the story. He has no idea what Arthur is thinking, can’t read where Arthur is thinking of taking this, whatever happened between them, or even if he wants to take it anywhere at all, and that makes Merlin want to keep it private until he knows how to spin it, until he knows if it should call for laughter or for something longer-lasting.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Gwen says when he eases the door open and peers cautiously inside. “I thought you were dead in a _ditch_.” He tries to skip back out of her reach, but she’s too quick for him. She grabs him by the collar and pulls him inside, somehow managing to strip him of his board, jacket and snow pants before he has time to do more than blink. “You couldn’t call us to let us know you were okay?”

“Sorry?” he offers, and looks up at the sound of sniggering.

The snigger comes from Will, because it’s just Merlin’s luck that everyone is up and watching him with interest. Lancelot is in front of the sink, an arm’s reach from where Gwen is now pulling off Merlin’s jumpers and inspecting him for damage, apparently unperturbed that his fiancée is undressing other men; Freya and Will are a step beyond, watching in wide-eyed amusement, cereal bowls and crumbs littering the table in front of them.

“Good night, then?” Will asks, raising an eyebrow meaningfully, and Merlin frowns to keep himself from blushing.

“No,” he says, shaking Gwen off before she can remove any more of his clothes. “Why is that always the first thing you think of?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re wearing another man’s shirt,” Freya comments, and Merlin looks down in dismay to see that he’s still wearing the shirt Arthur had lent him.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Sure it isn’t,” Lancelot says, and tosses him a thick slice of warm bread from the pan next to him. Merlin takes a bite: it’s still gooey in the middle and tastes like carrots. Freya’s been cooking again.

“It really isn’t,” Merlin insists through a mouthful of soggy bread, and then Will is planting him in a seat and cross-examining him until the whole story comes out—how he’d met Arthur in the lodge, the storm, (“We barely made it back,” Gwen comments, when Merlin mentions the snow; “Will nearly had to sleep under a table in the main lodge,”) going back to Arthur’s place. He makes sure to stress the fact that he had first met Arthur when Arthur had nearly run him over, that Arthur is a prick, and that Merlin had slept on the sofa, _alone_. He doesn’t say a word about the kiss.

Even so, he doesn’t like the way Gwen and Freya are eyeing him, as if they can see right through him; Will and Lancelot don’t have quite the same expression, but it’s clear none of them believe him when he protests that it was a one-time thing, just a couple of strangers helping each other out for a night.

“So,” Gwen says, sitting back and linking her fingers together primly on the table. “You meet this arrogant, very attractive man—” 

“I never said a word about attractive,” Merlin says, feeling like he should at least try to defend himself.

“I’ve seen pictures on the internet,” Freya volunteers, and gives Merlin a filthy wink. Merlin looks away quickly, colouring. “He is _very_ attractive, if you like blond gits.”

“Which, it has been long established, is our Merlin’s git of choice,” Will says. “Remember that one bloke, what was his name—the bouncer at that club you used to go to before they threw you out, Merlin—”

“Fuck you,” Merlin yelps, “you promised you’d never bring that up again!”

“You meet this very attractive man,” Gwen breaks in again, determined, and Merlin mutters,

“You forgot arrogant,” but shuts up when she sends him a steely look.

“And practically five minutes later he is inviting you to his house to spend the night,” she continues. “An invitation which you _accepted_.”

“Because it was that or die in the snow!” Merlin protests. “I would have accepted a place to stay from anyone, even from arrogant tossers who have nothing better to do with their lives but go around being giant pricks.”

“Pricks whose shirt you are wearing,” Lancelot reminds him, and Merlin gives him a betrayed look. 

“Would you have accepted from Tom Cruise?” asks Will, apparently with genuine curiosity, and Merlin chokes on crumbs, wheezing while Lance pounds him on the back unhelpfully.

“Christ, Will, _no_ ,” Merlin says, once he can breathe again, “I would _not_ have, hypothermia would have been better than—”

Merlin pauses, trailing off, because all three of them are grinning at him: enormous, shit-eating grins, and goddamn it, Merlin hates everyone in the _entire world_.

“So, not everyone,” Gwen says, smug. “Not every arrogant bastard could have won you over.”

“I hate you,” he informs the room at large, letting his forehead drop heavily onto the table. “I hate you all more than anything else in the world.”

“Not as much as Arthur,” says Freya in a sing-song.

“Not true,” Merlin disagrees, aware that he’s being melodramatic but not particularly caring. “I hate you all equally; you all have to live forever now in the lowest, most terrible level of my hatred. I should never have become friends with you in the first place.”

“Come on,” Gwen says, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s only what you deserve for worrying us all night.”

She might have a point, Merlin concedes, but there’s no use in him admitting it. “I’m going to change,” he says, sitting up again.

“We’ll wait for you,” Gwen assures him, which isn’t reassuring at all, and he escapes into the tiny corridor which leads to the ladder for the loft.

The loft is an open space above the main condo, with steeply sloped ceilings Merlin hits his head on at least twice a day and four narrow beds. Gwen and Lance sleep downstairs in the only private bedroom—something which Merlin and Freya insisted on when Gwen tried to give the privilege of privacy away, since it’s only Gwen and Lance who are actually supposed to be staying at Camelot—and the rest of them sleep upstairs. Will and Merlin had fought on the first afternoon for the bed furthest away from the window while Freya slipped by them and claimed it for herself; Will’s always had a weight advantage on Merlin, so Merlin ended up with the bed furthest from the space heater and closest to the cold which creeps in through and around the window frame. He shivers now, grabbing fresh clothes as quickly as he can before backing down the ladder again and ducking into the bathroom.

Everything seems miniature, he thinks, turning on the tap and waiting for the water to warm. The spareness of Arthur’s place gives way to a recollection of the _bigness_ of it—not that it was egregiously large, but the feeling of space it had, the understated way it had of feeling like somewhere lived-in. The condo feels more miniature, less like a home, the shower cluttered with tiny soaps and shampoos they’ve stolen from other hotels.

The fact that Merlin is thinking of Arthur’s place as _a home_ is sending some serious warning signals, though, so he steps under the lukewarm spray and scrubs his hair vigorously, as if that might help get rid of the thoughts. 

Properly washed and layered, Merlin emerges to find only Gwen and Freya innocently pottering about looking for gloves and hats, with Lance and Will nowhere in sight. Because Merlin was not born yesterday, he immediately senses a diabolical plot. He tries scuttling for the loft, but it’s too late—they’ve seen him. 

“Oh, Merlin,” Freya says, the very picture of nonchalance, stopping him in his tracks. “We’re thinking of a late lunch. One-thirty or so back here; we have leftovers.” 

Merlin’s about to say yes automatically when he thinks the timing through: there’s no way he’ll be able to get to the midway lodge by two if he has to come all the way down here. He’s caught with his mouth open, unwilling to tell the truth but unable to lie, and Gwen claps her hands. 

“I knew it!” she crows. “You have a date!”

“It’s not a date!”

“But you admit you’re meeting Arthur the blond git?” asks Freya.

Merlin pauses again, looking between them. Freya looks smug; Gwen is nearly in raptures. She’s always been too romantic for her own good, Merlin thinks gloomily, feeling trapped. “Fine, yes. But it’s _not a date_!” he stresses when they exchange a look which promises dark days full of inappropriate questions ahead for Merlin.

“I’m so happy,” Gwen tells him, patting his cheek and making him feel all of seven years old. He scowls. 

“You’d be happier admitting you want to shag him rotten,” says Freya, pulling on her gloves.

Merlin sighs. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed, okay? But it doesn’t mean anything will ever happen.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” Gwen says. She opens the door for Freya, and Merlin winces at the wind which blows in to twine around his shoulders and ankles. He hasn’t put on socks yet. “Give him a chance; who knows, he might surprise you.”

*

Merlin ends up at the midway lodge twenty minutes early by pure chance, not through any forethought or planning of his own, and not because he wanted to make sure their table was open for them to claim. It isn’t _their_ table, anyway, just a table they happened to sit at, and if it happens to be open again, well, it was a good table. Well situated.

The tail end of the lunch crowd is clearing out, leaving mostly disconsolate loners scattered behind, huddled into their jackets, looking too miserable or rebellious to venture back out. Merlin sits and toys with a napkin, methodically destroying it before he reaches for another one. He figures it’s okay: they’re brown and biodegradable, and the little placard on the holder says _made from 100% recycled material_ , so he can’t be doing too much harm to the environment.

He isn’t expecting Arthur to come exactly on the dot, so when two arrives he notices but doesn’t think much of it. He plays with the saltshaker instead, tapping out a syncopated rhythm until he accidentally spills salt over the wooden table. Will isn’t around to make fun of him for it, so he tosses a pinch over his left shoulder—at the very least, he figures, it can’t _hurt_ his luck much. He draws his finger through the scattered grains, pushing them aside into patterns before scooping them back together into a little mound and smoothing it over. Arthur is fifteen minutes late. Merlin swears the hands on his watch have never moved slower in his life; he suspects the universe of foul play.

He tries not to look at the woman sitting three tables over, wearing a black and disturbingly form-fitting snowsuit which looks uncomfortably like leather, who’s been staring at him with pale eyes too large for her small face. Eventually he shifts his chair around so he’s no longer directly facing her, though he doesn’t quite turn his back, just in case she attacks.

Ten more minutes drag by, and Merlin works on convincing himself he doesn’t mind. He’s waiting purely because he has nothing better to do with his time, and if Arthur doesn’t show Merlin isn’t going to be upset. This meeting didn’t really mean much to begin with; it isn’t like they’re friends. He thinks about buying cocoa or food or something, to make it look less like he’s waiting for someone else, though a ski lodge is one of the places anyone can sit alone for hours without drawing much notice; he blends in with the bored family members who wouldn’t wear skis or a board to save their life and with the thawing aficionados who’ve gone a bit blue around the extremities. But moving means losing his spot, so Merlin stays put, imagining instead all the cutting things he’ll greet Arthur with when Arthur finally appears. Merlin will be sitting casually, without an apparent care in the world, attracting appreciative glances from everyone around him simply by gracing them with his presence, and Arthur will rush in, distraught, sweep off his stupid gold helmet and fall to his knees at Merlin’s feet, begging for forgiveness. Or maybe Merlin will already be leaving, not because he’s sick of waiting or ashamed, but because he coolly decides the world needs him elsewhere, and Arthur will nearly crash into him at the door, panting from running through the snow in his heavy boots, and plead until Merlin deigns to sit with him. 

Of course, Merlin thinks, it’s far more likely that Arthur will breeze through the door and slide into a chair, oozing arrogance from every pore; he’ll lean the chair back on two legs and tease Merlin for being there first and for waiting—Merlin is sure Arthur has never waited for anything or anyone in his life—and Merlin will hate him for it but it will be too much fun to leave.

He knows he wouldn’t still be sitting here if Arthur didn’t seem to fit his type eerily well. But no matter how much Gwen sighs and tries to set him up with nice boys who spend their weekends volunteering with youth groups or at shelters, and no matter how many sly remarks Will makes about bondage gear and S&M—it had only been _once_ , that one incident with the handcuffs three years ago; Merlin is still never bringing anyone back to the flat ever again—this is the default Merlin always manages to come back around to.

Merlin’s had his heart broken before, but not in years. He’s grown up enough, matured enough, that he knows what to do to look after himself; he knows the ways his mind and body work well enough to realise when a flame isn’t going to take. Sure, he’ll let the other guy break it off, because it makes them feel better—it makes them feel in control, and Merlin can’t begrudge them that. But in the end, it’s Merlin who’s in control of himself enough to avoid being too invested, because love or whatever is supposed to be fun, right?

When he’s being honest with himself, he knows he’s still the same boy who gave his heart too easily, that all his bravado is only a show and as self-destructive as it is he’ll still end up buried in Gwen’s couch refusing to speak to anyone when his next affair goes sour. But honesty is a policy best reserved until all else fails, and until that point he can afford to ignore all of that and practice being an optimist: there’s something intriguing about Arthur that doesn’t quite fit the mould of Merlin’s usual flings, some bright spark about him that makes Merlin want to draw close and study him. So Merlin plays with the salt on the table, and thinks about how natural conversation feels with Arthur, not at all like a prelude to anything else, and doesn’t think of how the seconds are ticking steadily by.

When his watch says ten past three, Merlin asks four separate people for the time. At twenty past, informed beyond a shade of doubt by a severe-looking older man with terrible hat hair of the exact time down to the second, Merlin admits defeat. He pulls his own hat back on his head, and slips out the door into the thin, cold air of the afternoon. He keeps an eye on the shadows—already growing long—and does not look around to try and catch a glimpse of a familiar red jacket.

The racecourse is still set up, though a few of the flags have come loose to flap in the wind, and Merlin runs in and out of a few of them. It’s more difficult than he anticipated: the gates weren’t set for snowboarders, and there are deep grooves carved into the snow which have hardened with wear and the cooling temperature. When Merlin skids on the ice and nearly falls a third time, he gives the game up and turns his board down the mountain.

He meets Lance on the shuttle to Avalon. “So?” Lance asks, clapping him on the back. “I heard you had—”

“No,” Merlin interrupts. “You must have heard wrong. I had nothing.” He tries to temper the words with a smile, but it turns out to be mostly a grimace.

Lance takes it in stride. “The troubles of old age,” he says with equanimity. “Must be going deaf.”

“You’re not _that_ old.”

“Old enough that my joints are creaking. What do you say to an après-ski drink and a walk over to the pool?”

“Perfect.”

Lance mixes them both White Russians, which they drink in quiet peace before grabbing suits and towels and heading for the pool building to sit in the questionable Jacuzzi until their fingers wrinkle. Merlin remembers the Jacuzzi outside Arthur’s cabin: bigger than the one he’s sitting in now, and made more attractive by the fact that if he were there, he wouldn’t have tired parents bickering on one side and a few pensioners on the other discussing bodily functions on the other. He keeps his head above the water—he doesn’t trust it, not when there’s an inch of foam on the top—and reminds himself that he is not in Arthur’s Jacuzzi, and in fact probably will never see it again.

Lance must have mentally telegraphed Gwen to keep everyone out of Merlin’s business, for which Merlin is grateful, and as they all sit together for a quiet dinner, Merlin is almost glad Arthur stood him up, because he wouldn’t trade the company he’s keeping for any other in the world.

*

When he wakes up the next morning, he shuts his eyes again and pulls his head under the blankets, warming his frozen nose. 

“Come on, Merlin,” Freya calls. “I saw you move; no use pretending.”

“Bah humbug,” mutters Merlin, just because he feels like it, and then adds, louder, “I think maybe I pulled a muscle yesterday.”

“Liar,” Will accuses, but Merlin isn’t actually lying. His calves feel wrung-out and his knees ache. He probably could go out and face another day, but he’d rather coddle himself instead of doing real damage, and he can’t deny that he wants the quiet. 

“You’re sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?” Gwen asks while the others are winding their scarves around their necks and shrugging into their jackets.

“I promise,” Merlin assures her. “I’m just going to sit inside all day and read through the Mills & Boon collection Lance found in the cupboard.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says, and he’s still nodding when the door closes behind her, leaving him alone. He sags deeper into the chair, ensures his coffee and the box of cereal are within easy reach, and opens _The Virgin’s Proposition_ , settling down for a satisfying morning of ridiculous dialogue and questionable relationships. 

He ends up leaving the condo in the afternoon; pulling on his jacket and walking around the pond Avalon’s buildings are clustered around, his chin tucked deep into his scarf against the wind. He finds a bench to sit on, its wooden back cold even through his jacket, and watches little kids fall all over themselves on the ice, fumbling around in their snowsuits like so many awkward marshmallows.

The cross-country skier is halfway across the field beyond the pond before Merlin notices him. He’d known vaguely from the website that Camelot boasted an extensive network of trails, but none of them had been very interested in exploring; he hadn’t known there were trails all the way out here. He tucks his chin further into his jacket and watches the skier for a minute. The man is obviously practiced, moving smooth and fast over the groomed snow, working his way steadily along in an alternating V-stroke that takes up most of the trail.

It isn’t until the skier turns off the trail into the ungroomed snow, sliding his skis straight ahead now and making straight for Merlin, that Merlin puts the blond hair and red jacket together and recognises Arthur.

“Merlin!” Arthur greets him, cheerful, somehow manoeuvring his skis until he can plop down on the bench next to Merlin. He’s panting a little bit, damp with sweat, and his cheeks are red between the wind and the exertion. “Not out causing havoc today?” He’s in a different red jacket, lighter and more fitted, with SPYDER emblazoned in black thread across the chest. There’s a black lump sticking out of one of its pocket that looks like it’s probably his hat. 

“No,” Merlin says, and retreats further into his balaclava, hoping Arthur will take the hint. “My legs hurt. And I have a headache.” The last bit isn’t true yet, strictly speaking, but he’s sure he can feel one building at the base of his skull.

“Ah,” says Arthur with an insufferably knowing look. “You know what you should do; you need to get some of that gel, what’s it called—the kind that goes hot and cold—and rub it into your muscles when—”

Merlin stares at him while he prattles on about the benefits of regular massages, wondering if it’s possible for someone who seems intelligent in all other respects to really be this dense. Arthur doesn’t appear to notice, at least not until Merlin refuses to provide anything but surly monosyllables in answer to his questions about the aches in Merlin’s legs.

Arthur breaks off, irritable, when Merlin’s response to an inquiry about the level of pain in his left calf could only charitably be described as a grunt. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t appreciate being stood up, that’s what’s wrong with me.” The words aren’t planned, but once they’re out there Merlin doesn’t choose to take them back. It’s one thing for Arthur not to show up; it’s quite another entirely to have Arthur show up a day later and pretend that nothing ever happened at all.

Arthur goes from annoyed to glowering awfully quickly. Merlin wonders if he does it a lot. “Something came up.”

“Okay,” Merlin says. He can accept that. “So _say_ that. I don’t care about my gastro-whatever muscle—”

“You should.”

“Shut up. It’s common courtesy to at least _pretend_ to have an excuse when you skip coffee.”

“I don’t have to pretend. I couldn’t exactly call you to tell you.”

“But you’re sitting right here,” Merlin says with exaggerated patience. “Next to me. You could have said something any time in the last five minutes.”

“Why?” Arthur looks honestly puzzled through his glare. “It isn’t as if—what, did you think it was a date or something?”

That—that touches all sorts of red-flagged danger points in Merlin’s head. He doesn’t want to admit that yeah, it had felt like a date or something, so he folds his lips together against the bile in his stomach and doesn’t say anything at all, looking back at the frozen pond. They probably look like a couple, he and Arthur—friends at the very least—because Arthur is sitting so close to him, their shoulders centimetres from touching, and right now Merlin wants Arthur off his bench, out of Camelot; preferably in a different country, even. 

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur says, blowing out a noisy breath, sharp and angry. “You know what? I don’t need this shit. Not from you.”

He’s up in a moment, and Merlin resolutely does not look at him as he clumps his skis around and sails off into the fucking metaphorical sunset. It’s not like they even slept together. Arthur has no claim on him, no right to make him so upset. Maybe it’s just indigestion, he thinks, watching once Arthur has his back safely turned, heading off into the woods once more. Maybe he’s coming down with a cold.

Or, he thinks, standing and wincing as he works the kinks out of his back from sitting so long in the cold, it could be exactly _because_ he hasn’t slept with Arthur, because Arthur hadn’t been sure enough in himself to push the kiss and had made him breakfast and had teased him until Merlin felt utterly comfortable. He hasn’t let himself think that Arthur could be different, that Arthur could be something wonderful—only now it turns out maybe he’s been thinking it all along, somewhere beneath the surface of his conscious thoughts. 

Merlin curses, and retreats inside to binge on crisps and use the last of the instant cocoa.

*

That evening they’re picking through the forlorn remains of a pudding while a man on the telly blathers about snow conditions for the next day, when there’s a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Merlin says, pushing himself up off the floor. He’s been using his sweater as a pillow while he doodles with a marker in one of Will’s notebooks; most of the drawings feature crude jokes about scientists. “It’s probably the neighbours complaining about the music earlier.”

“The music wasn’t _that_ loud,” Lance says for the fifteenth time. “Besides, Stravinsky was meant to be played loud; it’s a crime to play it like it’s a secret.”

“Yeah, well, you can explain it to them, then,” Merlin tells him. He opens the door without looking through the peephole. “Look, sorry about the music, we were—”

It isn’t the neighbours at the door, a retired Swiss couple who go to bed at seven and seem to exist on nothing but water and whole grains. Arthur’s shifting his feet on the landing, wearing the jacket from earlier. He has his hands shoved in his pockets against the wind.

“Hey,” Arthur says, and before Merlin can do anything like slam the door in his face—stupid, he knows, but he still _wants_ to—Will calls out,

“Who is it?”

“No one,” Merlin answers quickly, and steps outside, shutting the door behind him, because Arthur thrown together with Merlin’s friends is a headache he doesn’t ever need.

“Hi,” Merlin says to Arthur, ignoring the voices growing louder on the other side of the door. “Uh—”

“I know this seems like something a stalker would do, showing up here,” Arthur begins when it’s clear Merlin isn’t going to think of anything appropriate to say—what _is_ appropriate in this situation? Merlin wonders—but before he can go any further the door opens and Gwen peeks out.”

“Merlin, what—”

“Go away, Gwen,” Merlin says, as nicely as he can manage, and yanks the door closed again. He holds it shut for a moment longer, sure that Will, at least, will try to poke his nose in Merlin’s business, but all he can hear is the rumble of Lance’s voice over everyone else, and then the noise recedes.

“Sorry,” he says, turning back to Arthur and folding his arms against the cold. Arthur looks back, a puzzled line between his eyebrows. His hair, where it’s sticking out from beneath the same black beanie he’d been wearing to receive his medal, is very blond, even in the faint light from the streetlights in the lot below.

“Stalking,” Merlin prompts. “You were explaining why you turned into a stalker.”

“I am _not_ a stalker.”

“Could have fooled me.”

Arthur’s frown deepens; he sighs and tugs at his hat. “I only wanted to... what happened earlier. I was out of line.” He stops there, looking uncomfortable, and Merlin leans back against the door, regretting the decision to leave his sweater on the floor inside: the wind is growing, whistling through the evergreens and cutting straight through his turtleneck. 

“That’s it?” he asks after a minute. “You stalked me home just to say that?” He doesn’t care if his disappointment shows through in his voice, because it isn’t as if he’ll see Arthur ever again, anyway—unless the git stalks him home—and he’s over Arthur Pendragon. He’s done with handsome bastards who don’t give two shits about anyone who falls outside their tiny box of money and privilege and the people who share it.

“Well, not quite,” Arthur says, and Merlin chances meeting his gaze, surprised. Arthur smiles encouragingly. “This is your cue to apologise to me.”

“ _What_?”

“You weren’t the paragon of innocence today, either.”

Merlin draws a hand over his face. He cannot deal with this, he thinks, and then remembers that he doesn’t _have_ to. “Nice knowing you,” he says, reaching for the door, and isn’t that classic, he can practically see the gears turning in Arthur’s head as he tries to figure out what went wrong. Good luck to him, Merlin thinks sourly looking away as he turns his back; he’ll put his money on Arthur never figuring it out.

“Merlin, wait,” Arthur says, and Merlin pauses, pulling his fingers back from the icy metal of the handle. Not because he’s softening toward Arthur, but because he’s morbidly curious to see how much further into this hole Arthur will dig.

“I... look, I apologise for standing you up yesterday,” Arthur says. The words come out deliberately: not forced, but as if they wanted out in a tumbling rush and he was reining them in. “I wanted to go. My father wanted to discuss a new contract with K2; I couldn’t leave.”

Merlin looks back around, raising his eyebrows. “You’re a grown man, and you couldn’t tell your dad you had to go meet a friend?”

“It’s not that simple,” Arthur says, tugging his beanie crooked and then straight again. “Never mind. I only wanted to tell you—it wasn’t you. I should have been there. I wanted to be there.” He breaks off, half a smile twitching the corners of his mouth to reveal a flash of slightly crooked teeth. “That’s all. I’m leaving for Canada tonight; I didn’t want to leave things sour between us.” He looks out toward the lot below, and Merlin follows his gaze to see a black SUV waiting below, its engine a barely audible grumble. “You’re—there’s something about you, Merlin. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

There are hundreds of things Merlin can say to that, but he isn’t sure he can voice any of them without betraying some greater part of himself, the flaring up of things he keeps trying to rid himself of for good. “You’re leaving?”

“There’s a race in Lake Louise next week,” Arthur says, a hand on the stair rail. “We’re heading out tonight.”

“Oh.”

They stand for a moment in silence; Merlin trying to think of anything to say, but his mind has gone blank entirely: what is there, really? Arthur is leaving, they’ll probably never cross paths again; all Merlin will have of him is a half-arsed apology and one dinner which could have led somewhere but didn’t. Maybe it’s better for them to leave it all here, let it be what it is: one night that could have been something more. 

“Well,” Arthur says at last, the first time Merlin’s seen him truly awkward. “Have a good night.” He starts down the steps, but before he’s gone more than three steps he stops and comes back until he’s standing on the last step below the landing, looking up at Merlin. He takes a hand out of his pocket without a word and puts it out, and Merlin steps forward to shake it before he thinks about it. 

Arthur’s hand is warm, almost hot against Merlin’s cold skin, and when he tries to let go, Merlin twists his fingers to keep Arthur’s hand in his. With his free hand, he fumbles in his back pocket for the pen he’d been using earlier. 

“Merlin,” Arthur starts, but Merlin uncaps the pen with his teeth and switches hands, holding Arthur’s wrist in his left hand while he pushes the sleeve of Arthur’s jacket up as far as he can and scrawls his email address on the soft skin on the underside of Arthur’s arm.

“There,” he says, letting go of Arthur and taking the pen cap out from between his teeth. “Any time you need your ego shrunk, drop me a line, okay?”

Arthur laughs. “I’ll do that,” he says with a delighted smile that does unspeakable things to Merlin’s intestines. “I daresay it will need it.”

Merlin smiles back, can’t help himself. “I look forward to it.”

Arthur clatters down the steps when he goes, hands back in his pockets and his shoulders relaxed, unaware or uncaring how much racket he’s making. Merlin rolls his eyes, but when Arthur stops to wave after opening the back door of the SUV, Merlin waves back.

He means to watch until the car turns out onto the road and disappears, but it is too damn cold for that. The taillights have barely begun to move away before he reaches for the doorknob, shivering. He twists, but the handle doesn’t move.

His first thought is that the handle must have frozen inexplicably shut, and tugs harder, but the door doesn’t budge. He twists the handle hard again and _shoves_ , vicious, but nothing happens.

“Goddamnit,” he says, glaring at the door. He hasn’t locked himself out of anywhere since he was fifteen and stupid with longing for his—gorgeous, suit-wearing, _straight_ —neighbour, a longing he hadn’t yet quite understood. He feels like kicking the door but his feet are frozen in his socks, so he bangs on it with his fist instead.

“Hello?” Will calls from the other side. “Who is it?”

“Very funny, Will,” Merlin says, banging harder. “Let me in.”

“Sorry, I can’t open the door. There’s some silly bugger out there who’d rather freeze to death than have conversations inside like a normal person.”

“Will, when I get in there—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, William,” Gwen says inside, and the door opens. Merlin dives through it and goes straight past Gwen for Will, wrapping his cold fingers around the nape of Will’s neck and holding on.

“You rat bastard!” Will yelps, squirming away, but Merlin wrestles him to the floor.

“Takes one to know one,” Merlin says, smug for a multitude of reasons, and stuffs his hands down the collar of Will’s shirt.

*

The holiday ends without anything else disturbing the general peace, and at the end of the week they pack up their things and turn in their equipment and head back to England, whose shores are more grey-brown than green in early January and where Cedric, the temporary assistant Gaius hires when Merlin’s away, had apparently considered it his duty to make _more_ work for Merlin to do when he showed up at work again, not less. 

“I told you not to hire him,” Merlin tells Gaius while he’s moving merchandise back to its proper place: the haemorrhoid ointment has been inexplicably moved to the candy section in his absence. “I tell you every time I take time off not to hire him; all he does is scare off customers and make it impossible to find anything, and in a week he’ll show up again with feathers stuck in his hair and challenge me to a magician’s duel because he’s spent all his pay on liquorice and is convinced he’s some dreadful sorcerer-king reincarnated for the sole purpose of making my life a total misery.”

“That’s unkind, Merlin,” Gaius reproves. “The boy is courteous enough, and I do need another pair of hands around when you aren’t here. He’s never given me cause to complain.”

“Hair feathers,” Merlin mutters darkly, tossing another bottle of ointment into his basket, but he lets the subject drop, preoccupied. Arthur hasn’t emailed him yet, but Merlin’s been productive while he waits, industriously stalking Arthur through YouTube and Wikipedia and fansites. At first he spells skiing wrong, forgetting the extra ‘i’, and comes up with a bunch of badly made sites celebrating Stephen King, but after he figures out the problem his internet forays turn out to be truly illuminating.

Arthur Pendragon, according to Google, has been agreed to be the Prince of Skiing practically since the first day he saw snow—this, Merlin thinks, this explains _so much_. He learns that at school Arthur had been a model student, and had put icing on the cake by winning every competition he entered. YouTube is particularly instructive on this: there’s an Arthur fan channel packed with race footage, and soon Merlin has thirteen different sites bookmarked because he has no idea what half the words the commentators are using even mean. There’s no YouTube footage of Arthur’s brawl with Valiant Miller, both of them just out of school and no room for both their egos on the racing circuit, but Merlin reads all the articles about it; the rumours swirling around Valiant and the terrible press Arthur had received, everyone speculating about drugs and whether he’d started too young, if he was too immature to be a professional. 

Merlin is settled into a slow Saturday afternoon of biscuits his mum had sent, half-listening to the light rain spattering the windows of the flat and reading up on Valiant’s own spotted résumé when Baron leaps onto his keyboard and somehow erases all of his tabs. 

“Freya!” he yells, pushing ineffectively at the fifteen pounds of cat in his lap. “Your damn cat is being a nuisance again!”

“Don’t swear at her,” Freya calls back from her room. “She doesn’t like it.”

“Well I don’t like _her_ ,” Merlin grumbles, holding his computer gingerly out of Baron’s reach so she can’t destroy anything else. He’d had to replace the power cord a few months before after she’d chewed it into three pieces. Baron takes the opportunity to settle herself more firmly into Merlin’s lap, flexing her claws to knead his thighs and looking up at him with yellow eyes.

“Wonderful,” Merlin says. “Now how am supposed to do any work?” Baron doesn’t blink as she starts rasping out a purr. Merlin ignores the sound; he knows she isn’t purring because she likes him—she has some sort of heart condition that makes her sound perpetually congested. They’re not technically allowed to have cats in their building, but Freya had brought her home one night, her fur matted and dirty and not doing much to hide the fact she was nothing but bones beneath her skin, and neither Merlin nor Will had had the heart to say no. They’d ended up regretting it, but there’s nothing they can do now—throwing the cat back to the street would break Freya’s heart, and Merlin suspects Baron would find a way back in anyway. The name had been Freya’s idea: she’d found a mention in a book she was reading of a certain yellow-eyed Baron von Dragon of Kilgharrah, and the name had stuck despite Merlin’s protests and Will’s attempts to make the cat answer to Duchess and Fluffy.

Now Baron is pushing her head into Merlin’s palm, demanding the worship she believes is her due, and Merlin sighs, putting his computer on the floor and obediently turning his attention to stroking her brindled fur the wrong way, tickling her battered ears until she rolls onto her side and bats at his hand. 

“I think you and Arthur would get along well,” he tells her. “You’re both insufferable.” Baron stares at him, unimpressed, and Merlin shakes his head at himself for even thinking it.

A month goes by, then another, and Merlin knows now how many world records Arthur has smashed, how private he’s made his life since the fight with Valiant, keeping his private life almost entirely out of the papers—not a small feat, really, given the absurd amount of money the Pendragons have and their family history. Merlin learns that Sir Uther Pendragon _owns_ Camelot, and discovers that five years ago he himself would have been cordially escorted to the edge of the property and given a swift kick in the arse. Uther’s wife had been killed in an accident with a snowboarder; Camelot had been one of the last resorts to allow snowboarders on their trails, and even then only after behind-the-scenes threatening and plummeting ticket sales.

Merlin doesn’t spend much time on that story. He remembers Arthur’s face at the mention of his mother, and it feels like too much of an invasion to look any further. He’s aware of how ridiculous the reasoning is, given how long he’s spent inspecting every other aspect of Arthur’s life, but he ignores that, clicking back through his bookmarks to the video of Arthur doing drunken karaoke in Lillehammer instead. Arthur’s dressed in a black shirt which Merlin suspects is tailored to fit him exactly, looking young and flushed and every inch a world champion, and Merlin aches for him, because he already knows what happens next.

He tries not to watch the other video he has bookmarked much, but sometimes he can’t help it. There’s a mesmerising horror that fills him, watching helpless as Arthur crashes through the orange plastic netting again and again, rolling down in a cloud of snow and skis and poles, everything flying everywhere until he comes to a stop when he hits the tree, and Merlin knows, now, exactly why Arthur’s worship of Hermann Maier makes sense. The injury to Arthur’s knee had been devastating, the surgery extensive. He’d missed the Olympics while he’d fought to walk again, and everyone had thought he was finished, banished from the world he’d loved just as his star began to climb. There had been rumours about his coach, exposés over how hard his father had been driving him, opinion pieces about the consequences to athletes when they were pushed too hard. Oprah had done a special on it; thirty-six newly minted grassroots organisations joined forces to start an awareness campaign. Through it all Arthur remained silent, never gave a single interview, his entire attention focused on making his body obey him again.

He’d won the slalom title in the World Cup a year later, stunned the skiing community and returned to racing with a vengeance, his focus absolute as he decimated the competition. There had been a few cracks in his professional façade before the crash—the karaoke video and a few photos of him out with girlfriends here and there—but afterward there was nothing; he barely gave interviews anymore. There was speculation about doping, perhaps personal problems, but Merlin figured it was more because Arthur was a sad bastard who had let skiing become his entire life. Arthur seemed the type of man to let his focus overwhelm him, and Merlin was sure the accident had only exacerbated an existing problem.

Arthur’s focus has apparently been extensive enough to rule out any communication with Merlin. After the first month Merlin stops holding his breath when he checks his inbox; after the second he’s barely even looking for an email. He stops checking the race results and looking for Arthur’s name—always at the top of the list—and slips back into his old routines with only a little regret. Now that he’s back in his own life it seems absurd that Arthur should ever be a part of it: Arthur doesn’t fit here, not in the small flat Merlin shares with Will and Freya, not in the familiar paths he treads to work and the local and the café he meets Gwen at once a month. After a while, he stops thinking of Arthur at all. Honestly.

*


	3. Chapter 3

:::

_We could make this into anything  
We could make this into more than words we speak.  
This could make us into anything  
It could make us grow and become what we'll be_

:::

 

Cedric shows up on a Tuesday in March, dressed in a manky black cloak that looks like it could cover five of him as well as the requisite feathers and wild eyes. 

“Cedric,” Merlin greets him, adopting a placating tone because Cedric was craftier this time than he usually is and waited until Merlin went out back by the bins for his fifteen minute smoke break before popping up between Merlin and the door when Merlin wasn’t paying attention. 

Merlin doesn’t really smoke, not since he was sixteen and desperately trying to pick up a destructive habit if it killed him. Five and a half cigarettes into the path to addiction and an embarrassing number of coughing fits later, Will’s hysterical laughter had put Merlin off of smoking for good—he’d found other bad habits to adopt soon enough. But he still claims the break and has a three year old pack of cheap smokes for appearances’ sake, which he brings with him while he sits out by the bins and watches the fat clouds go scudding past overhead, luxuriating in the peace and quiet of the dead end alley behind the shop. He uses it to take a literal break from being cheerful, which allows him to think petty and unkind thoughts about customers without worrying about the thoughts showing through on his face, and he’s never had a reason to regret it until now.

“Silence,” Cedric commands. “You will call me by my true name, Emrys, and then we shall do battle to the death. Only one magician may rule in this kingdom!”

“It’s a chemist’s, idiot, not a kingdom,” Merlin snaps, trying to edge around Cedric toward the door. “And you’re a shop assistant, not a sorcerer.”

Cedric shifts, blocking Merlin further into the dead end of the alley. “Fight like a man, Emrys; only cowards run from a fight.”

“Not a fight like this,” Merlin mutters, and tries to inch past Cedric again.

Cedric makes a furious squawking noise, flaps his cloak, and clocks Merlin hard just beneath Merlin’s left eye.

Merlin trips and falls out of shock more than anything else, and he has barely a minute to think before Cedric is throttling him, eyes wilder than ever. This is the last smoke break he’s ever taking, Merlin thinks while he struggles to pry Cedric’s fingers from around his throat. It’s a filthy habit, anyway; never mind one he doesn’t actually practice.

He is almost resigned to ignominious death-by-nutter or the equally embarrassing fate of having to live knowing he’d been defeated by Cedric, of all people, when a shout comes echoing down the alley. 

“Oi! What’s going on there?”

Cedric scrambles up and away, and Merlin closes his eyes for a moment to hope that it’s Gaius or someone else who won’t make this a completely humiliating experience, because he can feel that his hair is full of muck and Defeated Waif is not really his best look. Freya’s lectured him extensively on it.

When he opens his eyes again there’s a very young, very fit officer of the law striding toward them, his uniform stretched over a chest Merlin suspected could be confused with that of an Olympic swimmer. He shakes his hair out of his face, running one hand back through the long strands, and Merlin succumbs to despair. Cedric is hopping on one foot, waving his arms and hissing the way a very sick swan might. 

Merlin wishes someone would blow him magically to Bermuda, or Mongolia, or anywhere that wasn’t lying in the mud where someone conjured directly out of a thousand fantasies could see him.

“You alright there, mate?” the officer asks in a voice designed by the devil to go straight to Merlin’s cock, and Merlin sits up, opening his eyes, before he can embarrass himself any further.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just a little misunderstanding, that’s all.”

The policeman gives him a sceptical look. “Quite the shiner you have there.” Merlin reaches up to prod gingerly at his eye, which is already swelling up handsomely. Wonderful, he thinks, resigned. Gaius will give him hell for that, never mind that none of it was Merlin’s fault.

“Door,” Merlin explains, because it’s the first thing he can think of, and he isn’t going to tell the _truth_ , not about something this ridiculous. “Ran into it.”

The officer looks suspiciously like he’s biting back a grin. “You sure?” he asks, cocking his head toward Cedric, who’s moved past all the hissing and flapping to spin in slow, lurching circles. “He had nothing to do with it?”

“Very sure,” Merlin says, because clumsy is still better than being taken out by an addled lunatic. “He was, ah, just helping me up.”

“Hmm,” the officer says, and turns to Cedric. “Your sense of duty is commendable, sir,” he says, his voice strangely choked. Cedric stops mid-twirl and cocks a beady eye at him. “Now scat, before _you_ fall down and I have to escort _both_ of you to the station.” Cedric pauses a moment longer, but when the officer takes a pointed step toward him, he startles and takes off, pelting down the alley and out of sight.

The policeman throws back his head and laughs, a clear, hearty sound that echoes around the alley. Merlin feels a little warmer despite himself. “You’re not really taking me in, are you?” he asks, and the officer shakes his head, still wiping tears from the laughter off his cheeks.

“Course not,” he says. “That was only to get rid of _him_ —we get him in once a month or so and no one wants to do the paperwork anymore.” He reaches a hand down to Merlin. “Name’s Gwaine, by the way.”

Merlin takes the offered hand. “Merlin,” he says as Gwaine pulls him up effortlessly. “Thanks.”

“Just doing my duty,” Gwaine replies with a wink, and Merlin fights back a flush. “Tell me, Merlin, what’s a fine young lad like yourself doing in a back alley like this?”

“I work here,” Merlin says, jutting his chin at the back of the shop. “Chemist’s assistant.”

“No chance you’re off work now?”

Merlin shows Gwaine the crumpled carton in his hand. “On my break.”

“Have an extra? I’m dying for a smoke.”

“Sure,” Merlin says, and belated realises it’s probably not a good idea. “I, er, don’t have a lighter.”

“That’s fine, I have one,” Gwaine says, reaching for the cigs.

“And they might be foul,” Merlin adds, pulling the carton out of Gwaine’s reach. “They’re sort of old. I mean, a few years old. Three, maybe? I don’t actually smoke,” he explains when Gwaine looks puzzled, and Gwaine laughs again at that, his face crumpling up with delight. Merlin sort of wants to lick his throat, but squashes the thought firmly.

“Lord, you really are something,” Gwaine says when he recovers. “Do you finish soon?”

“Not ’til late tonight,” Merlin tells him, not without a little regret.

“Pity,” Gwaine says, and produces a slip of paper from somewhere and tucks it into the pocket of Merlin’s work shirt, patting it when he’s done. “Give me a call sometime, blue eyes,” he says with another wink. “I’d love to take you out for a drink.”

Merlin nods, because somewhere in between the patting—definitely too much of a caress to pass for innocent—and the wink, he’d managed to swallow his own tongue. Gwaine throws a mock salute and turns to saunter off again, his hands in his pockets; Merlin takes the opportunity to ogle his—extremely nice—arse. It takes a few minutes before he feels recovered enough to go back to work, where Gaius takes one look at him and sends him back out immediately to wash the worst of the mud from his hair and change into a spare shirt which smells like cats and mothballs. 

The afternoon passes uneventfully after that, although Gaius takes up a habit of tutting when Merlin tries to explain what happened, which Merlin feels is really very unfair. He consoles himself by reaching for the slip of paper in his pocket, just to make sure the whole thing wasn’t a terrible hallucination. Each time he feels for it, though, the paper is there, warm from Merlin’s body heat and, he fancies, just the slightest bit smudged by Gwaine’s fingers.

He waffles over calling Gwaine for a week, because he’s busy with work.

“You are _not_ busy with work,” Freya accuses him when she finds the number lying out and confronts him over it. “You are sitting at home moping and eating all of my HobNobs.”

Merlin protests at that; it had been the _once_ , when he’d still been checking the FIS reports, and he’d lost track of the time before Freya came home from her job at a posh veterinary office and yelled at him for moping and polishing off the Jaffa Cakes as well.

“He’s eating mine, now,” Will calls from where he’s making a mess of soap bubbles in the tiny kitchen sink, interrupting Merlin’s bluster before he could really get it started. “Yours are gone already.”

Freya fixes Merlin with a glare, and Merlin positions his ancient laptop in front of him as a shield. 

“That’s not true,” he says, feeling petulant. “I need to find better flatmates.”

“As if anyone would take your sorry arse in,” Will snorts, giving up on the battered pan he’s been mauling to lean his hip on the armchair Merlin’s in, wiping his hands dry first on the nubby olive fabric and then on Merlin’s shoulder.

Merlin makes annoyed noises and shuts his laptop. There’s no need to add fuel to this particular fire by sharing the fact that he’s been looking up YouTube videos of Arthur’s latest win somewhere in Austria. “Plenty of people would be happy to have me.”

“Plenty of people like this Gwaine bloke,” Freya says, sitting by Merlin’s feet and poking at his toes through the holes in his socks. Merlin resists the urge to kick. “Call him. It’s just a drink, it’s not like that automatically has to lead anywhere else.”

Will waggles his eyebrows. “Hopefully it will lead to _something_ else, you’ve been a right tit lately.” Merlin shoves him, but Will just laughs and catches himself easily before he falls, standing up to lean over the back of the chair.

“You are a terrible person,” Merlin says. “I have no idea how you were ever hired to work at a school, of all places; the education system is clearly going down the toilet.”

“I am an _excellent_ teacher,” Will retorts. “Never has the square root of negative one been so exciting as in my classroom.”

“It’s certainly not exciting here,” Freya remarks, and grabs Merlin’s hand to put the slip of paper with Gwaine’s number in his palm and wrap his fingers around it. “Call him,” she instructs, “or I’ll make Will do it, and I think we all remember the _last_ time Will tried flirting with a man.”

“I was drunk!” Will protests. “He looked like Clive Owen! I only wanted an autograph!”

“That’s no excuse,” Freya says, and Merlin uses their distraction to sneak away.

“Call him!” Freya yells again before he has a chance to shut his door, and Merlin sighs.

“If I do, can I be off litter box duty?”

“No,” Will calls back. “But I won’t give Baron your favourite shirt to claw again.”

“I _really_ need new flatmates,” Merlin grumbles, and shuts his door.

He really does mean to call Gwaine. Gwaine is attractive and seems like fun and probably has his own set of handcuffs. And, Merlin reminds himself, thinking back, he was definitely interested; Merlin has every right to think that calling him up would lead to a great evening. But he hesitates. Nice boys don’t just happen to drop by alleys and pick up other boys who have an embarrassing amount of muck in their hair, after all. He checks his email and reads about the rules of slalom, instead, and the number sits on the low wooden table he’s wedged into his tiny room, until he comes home from work early on Saturday afternoon: furious, swearing he’s done with the human race _forever_ , and leaves his trainers in the shower to clean the vomit off later. 

His phone is in his hand before he has time to second-guess himself.

“Hello?” Gwaine’s voice is just like Merlin remembers: warm as honey with just a hint of a wicked edge.

“Hey, Gwaine? It’s, er—it’s Merlin.”

“Merlin?” Gwaine says, and Merlin has just long enough to wince and kick himself hard before Gwaine chuckles. “Need any more help defending yourself from overgrown crows?”

“Didn’t need help the first time,” Merlin says, but he can’t help smiling, wandering out from his room through the flat. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for that drink; this evening, maybe?”

“Love to, blue eyes,” Gwaine says. “I know just the place—and I’ll leave the uniform at home.”

“Well,” Merlin says, feeling bold, “You can bring it, if you want.”

“If that’s what you’re into,” Gwaine says, laughing outright now. “I’m a flexible man. I’ll bring the one I had made special for parties and dancing.”

“That sounds perfect,” Merlin says, grinning, feeling the stress of the day streaming out of his shoulders. Gwaine is going to be _fun_ ; he can’t remember why he hadn’t called earlier.

They agree on a place—a club Merlin’s walked by before but never been in—and when they hang up Merlin stares at his phone for a minute before realising that Freya’s in the doorway, dressed in the ratty old jumper she wears to volunteer at the RSPCA, shopping bags at her feet.

“Shut up,” Merlin orders pre-emptively, shoving his mobile into his pocket. 

“I wasn’t going to say a word.”

“Like hell you weren’t,” he grumbles, but he helps her with the bags when she bends to pick them up.

“Go away,” she says once everything’s inside. “I’m a big, strong woman; I can take care of this. You go get ready for your big date.”

“You’re—” Merlin begins, because he’s pretty sure he’s met six-year-olds who weigh more than Freya does, but he thinks better of it. “It’s not a big date.”

“Merlin.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” He retreats, and since she’ll only bother him about it for the rest of the afternoon if he doesn’t do as instructed, he twists the shower on and grabs a new razor from his room while he waits for the water to warm. It isn’t until he opens the curtain to step in that he remembers his trainers, which are now soaking wet on top of being vomity.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he yells, just to make himself feel better, and adds, “Sorry!” because Freya’s touchy about language. He definitely deserves a drink tonight.

*

The club is sleek in an old-fashioned way, all dark wood polished to a shine, but the dance floor is outfitted with the latest in design, and Merlin’s still blinking against the light, shrugging off his coat, when an arm wraps around him from behind in a half-hug.

“Glad you made it,” Gwaine says, letting go to help Merlin with his coat.

“I had a terrible week. It was past time for a drink to relax.”

“We can fix that,” Gwaine declares, leading Merlin to the bar. “We are all about drinking and relaxing. In fact, as I am a protector of the public interest, it is my duty to ensure you get what you need. What’ll you have?”

“It’s the other way around,” Merlin protests. “I invited you out; I’m supposed to ask you that question.”

Gwaine traces a slow line over Merlin’s knuckles where Merlin’s holding onto the back of a bar stool. “You can pay me back later,” he teases, and Merlin sticks his tongue out, ignoring the irregular hiccup in his heartbeat.

“Pint of lager,” Merlin says, and though he has the money ready when his drink arrives, Gwaine turns out to have ninja police skills, managing to pay and steer Merlin out of reach before Merlin has a chance to hand his money over.

“We’re back here,” Gwaine tells Merlin, fingers warm around Merlin’s wrist, and Merlin follows him across the dance floor—too early still for more than a few dancers to get in the way—to a booth set into the wall with three people already in it: two other men and a woman.

It isn’t exactly the set-up Merlin had imagined when he asked Gwaine out for a drink, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. 

“Everyone, this is Merlin,” Gwaine announces, sitting on the empty side of the booth. Merlin slides in next to him. “Merlin, everyone.”

“Oh, no,” the woman says. “Merlin, you look far too nice to be tangled up with this dissolute character.”

“Oi,” Gwaine says. “What if I’m the innocent lamb tangled in _his_ web?”

“That’ll be the day,” one of the men says dryly. He sports a carefully trimmed ginger beard, and has shoulders which turn Merlin’s mouth to cotton. “Stop mixing your metaphors. I’m Leon,” he says, and Merlin shakes his hand. “This is Elena, and the man disguised as a boulder there is Percival.” Elena twiddles the tips of her fingers at Merlin in greeting, and Percival nods regally. Merlin smiles back a little weakly, and worries about the awkward pause until Gwaine nudges him. 

“So where did you two meet?” Elena asks, sipping her drink. She’s quite pretty, her hair tumbling around her face in long waves. Her top is sparkly and low-cut, and she holds herself confidently, as if she knows she could lay any of them out cold—even Leon and Percival, who dwarf her as she sits between them.

“You’ll never guess,” Gwaine says, grinning and leaning toward her. “Found him on the street.”

Leon’s eyebrows draw together ominously, and Percival gives Merlin a slow, stone-cold look. Merlin notices, but Gwaine doesn’t; Elena is laughing.

“You did _not_.”

“My hand to God!” Gwaine says, laying a palm over his chest and giving her an innocent look. “There he was on his back in a dark alley, having some trouble with a nutter, and I thought to myself; Gwaine, I thought to myself, here is your chance to do some good, save a poor soul and maybe find something special in the bargain—you know, the whole diamond in the rough lark—”

“Um,” Merlin interrupts, stumbling because Leon’s expression has been growing steadily darker. “He doesn’t mean—he didn’t find me _on_ the street. I mean, he did, but not like. Um.”

Gwaine throws an affectionate arm around his shoulders. “You don’t have to be ashamed, Merlin,” he says, mock-serious. Merlin gives him a weak smile, and shrinks back into the seat to hide behind his pint while Gwaine and Elena reminisce about particularly thrilling cases together—Merlin gathers Elena is a detective on the force—and Leon and Percival quietly, inescapably block him out of the conversation. He’s no idiot; he can see there’s something between them, or Gwaine wants there to be. They banter like the oldest and best of friends, but there’s a gleam in Gwaine’s eyes that Merlin recognises clear as day.

“Come on, you deviant,” Elena says, tossing back her drink as Gwaine finishes a story about missing evidence and several hijinks which Merlin’s pretty sure could put him out of a job if anyone found out about them. “Dance with me.”

“I can’t say no to a pretty lady,” Gwaine says, bowing over the table. “If you’ll excuse me, Merlin? I promise I’ll be right back,” he adds, bending close to whisper while Merlin lets him out. Merlin watches him go unhappily, feeling resentful as Elena pulls Gwaine onto the dance floor, both of them laughing. He’s made a proper idiot of himself this time; he wonders if he can slip away now without being impolite.

Percival clears his throat.

“Well,” Leon says. “This has been fun, hasn’t it?” It’s not a question; his eyes are too flinty as he gives Merlin a measuring look. “I think it’s time to put our cards on the table.”

Wonderful, Merlin thinks. He glances at the dance floor, but Gwaine isn’t paying attention, dancing close and dirty with Elena. “My cards are on the table,” he says. “Gwaine helped me out, and I called him to see if he wanted to get a drink.”

“I think that’s a bad idea,” says Leon. “I think it’s a much better idea if you were to leave. Now.” Percival is taking out his wallet.

Irritation grows up strong and hot through Merlin’s resentment. “I think you should mind your own business,” he snaps. “I called Gwaine to go out and relax after a shitty week, not to face the Spanish Inquisition. I’m not a fucking rent boy, and you can’t pay me off.”

They look at him with faces made of stone, and Merlin wonders how intelligent he is for picking a fight with two muscle men who weigh twice as much as he does, but before he can come to a verdict Gwaine is hanging over his shoulder saying, incredulous; “You think Merlin is a _hooker_?”

Leon shifts, looking uncomfortable. Percival’s expression doesn’t change, but at least he takes the wallet off the table. Gwaine is laughing. “Mate,” he says to Leon, “when have you ever known me to pay anyone to have a drink with me, let alone sleep with me?” Leon looks more uncomfortable, and the suspicious air hasn’t quite faded, but he’s forced to concede that no, Gwaine has never before required the services of a prostitute for anything.

Merlin relaxes, and lets Gwaine scold Leon and Percival until they’re both completely shamefaced. Gwaine’s hand is resting on the back of his neck, warm and heavy, and Merlin is enjoying the sensation of being defended until Gwaine says, carried away: “Anyway, what would it matter if I _was_ paying for his services? I’m allowed to make my own choices, and so is he.”

“Thanks, Gwaine,” Merlin interrupts—if he’s not careful they’ll end up right back where they started. “I think you’ve made your point.”

“Thoroughly,” agrees Leon with relief. 

“Apologise,” Gwaine orders. “Elena is going to get a round of apology drinks on your tab.” Elena smiles and slips away, patting Merlin on the shoulder as she goes.

Leon gives Merlin a mournful look. “I really am sorry, Merlin.” Percival nods his agreement.

“I’ll consider it,” Merlin says lightly as Gwaine nudges him over, sitting close to him. “You might have to buy me several drinks before I believe it.”

“It’s only proper,” says Leon, smiling. “So if you aren’t a gentleman of the night, what do you do?”

“Oh lord,” Elena says as she returns, leading an attractive young man with their drinks. “Never say _gentleman of the night_ again, it’s like you walked straight out of Victorian literature.”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says, feeling generous because his new drink is large and looks expensive. “I sort of like it. It sounds better than saying I’m a shop assistant.”

Elena laughs, shoving Leon until he moves over far enough that she can sit down. “I’ll disagree with that, but at least even a shop assistant is better than being unemployed.”

“I am _not_ unemployed,” Leon argues. “I’m—”

“We know,” Gwaine breaks in. “You’re saving the world singlehandedly through chivalry and good deeds.”

Leon looks so longsuffering at this that Merlin can’t help but laugh—he bears an uncanny resemblance to Lance. “I have a friend doing the same,” he tells Leon. “My sympathies.”

“It’s not so bad,” Leon says, looking eager. Merlin feels fond: Lance does the same when he finds new people who haven’t heard about his mission fifty-six times before. He thinks he can probably forgive Leon for thinking he’s a hooker and trying to get rid of him—he imagines Lance would do the same misguided thing if he had been in Leon’s place and Merlin had been the one bringing an unknown man to their group. He has the feeling that both of them, Lance and Leon, are too noble for their own good. 

“We’ll all grow old if we sit here and listen to you talk about the trees all night,” Gwaine says. “Merlin, dance with me? I promise it’ll be more interesting than these heathens.” 

“Careful with that one; he’s a maniac,” Elena says, grinning, and Merlin smiles back before leading Gwaine out onto the dance floor. 

He walks until he can’t see the table—he doesn’t really want all of them watching while he dances with Gwaine. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says when he finally stops and turns to Gwaine; he can’t help needling, just a little, just to see what answers it gets him. “Thought I might have to be a wallflower all night.”

Gwaine gives him a hangdog look. “Elena and I—we go back a long time. But it’s just friends,” he assures Merlin. “I may be a bit of a tart, but I’m not _that_ bad.”

Merlin laughs. “I’m sure you are.”

“Well,” Gwaine says in Merlin’s ear, big hands wrapping easily around Merlin’s hips to draw him close. “Maybe I am.” Merlin can feel Gwaine’s smile on his skin. “I’m sorry about them,” Gwaine continues. “I should have told you before that they’d be here.”

“A warning would have been nice,” Merlin agrees.

“This is our night out, usually; all of us. I tried to get rid of them, I really did, but they’re worse than cats, the lot of them.”

“It’s alright,” Merlin says. “But I think you’ll have to buy me another drink to make up for it. They’ve probably spiked mine by now, anyway.”

He can feel the curl of Gwaine’s smile against his skin. “Probably,” Gwaine says, solemn, and steps back. “Let’s get them all terrible pink umbrella drinks in revenge.”

Gwaine indeed buy a round of the most luridly coloured drinks he can find, and forces everyone to drink them, even Percival, who complains that purple is not his colour.

Somehow, one umbrella drink turns into four, all of them falling over laughing as the drinks get more and more outrageous, all misunderstandings forgotten. Before Merlin can claim his round, Gwaine is yelling in his ear, “Let’s dance!” and that sounds great to Merlin, it sounds _fantastic_ , because the club is hopping now, the base rattling around in his ribs, and he really, really wants an excuse to put his hands on Gwaine’s arse.

When he does, slipping his hands down to cup them around Gwaine’s arse—just as nice to touch as it is to look at, he discovers—Gwaine laughs. “Are you being fresh with me, young man?”

“Sure,” Merlin says, cheeky from the alcohol and the spray of lights across his skin.

Gwaine slips his own hands down and tucks them into Merlin’s back pockets. “You can be as fresh as you like with me,” he says with a smile that shows just enough teeth to set Merlin’s pulse racing, and steps in until their chests are pressed together.

Merlin’s never claimed to be a good dancer, but Gwaine _is_ , and he tucks Merlin in against him and dances well enough for both of them, Merlin following where Gwaine’s body tells him to go. He gives in to the music easily, letting the lights flow over them, dancing until his legs are burning and Gwaine’s damp hair is brushing against his face. 

“Another drink?” Gwaine yells as the song changes, and Merlin nods, glad at the chance to sit down for a minute. Gwaine keeps a hand at the small of his back, easy, and Merlin’s had enough to drink by now that Gwaine flirting with Elena and Leon trying to throw him out of the club for being a rent boy doesn’t bother him—it’s fun to have more people there to talk with, he thinks, until Gwaine’s fingers start dipping down from his back under the waistband of Merlin’s jeans.

One more round and Merlin’s letting Gwaine push him up against the grotty wall of the men’s, the sticky tile cool against his skin as Gwaine sucks biting kisses down his neck. Merlin hisses a curse when Gwaine presses his teeth into Merlin’s collarbone; Gwaine ignores him, pulling at his shirt to expose more skin. He’s going to be covered with marks, Merlin knows, he’ll catch hell for it from Will later, but right now he can still feel the music beating in his skin and he doesn’t _care_ ; he shuts his eyes and tips his head back to give Gwaine a better angle. He bites back a groan when Gwaine finds a nipple and pinches before leaning down to drag his tongue over it. 

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Gwaine says, and it’s trite, a terrible cliché from all of the worst sorts of porn, but it makes Merlin groan again, and he reaches down to help with his fly while Gwaine kisses him, too wet and too greedy and still unbearably good. 

Merlin has to break away to pant for breath when Gwaine takes them both in hand, digging his fingers into Gwaine’s shoulders when their cocks slip together. The breath’s been knocked out of him, but he can’t stop moving, running his hands over Gwaine’s arms, his chest, following the pull of the muscles with his fingers while Gwaine pushes him into the wall harder, stroking faster now, more desperately.

Gwaine’s talking, a steady stream of filth in Merlin’s ear, and god, _fuck_ , Merlin knows this is a bad idea, knows it’s terrible that they’re doing this and even worse that he can’t stop himself from wondering what it would be like if Gwaine was a little shorter, a little more uptight, a little blonder. But the bottoms of his feet are already prickling a warning, and the heat in his belly is pulling down sharply, straining, nearly there—he’s dizzy with the thrill of this, stupid from lust, and he _wants_ this: wants to push his hips forward, grind against someone else and catch their bottom lip in his teeth, wants to have the breath kissed out of him until orgasm punches through him hard and leaves him melted. He wants to feel _wanted_ , needs someone whispering obscenities in his ear to make him moan. It doesn’t have to mean more than this, he thinks; doesn’t have to mean anything at all.

“Stop fucking thinking,” Gwaine orders. He has both hands braced against the wall by Merlin’s head now; they’re rutting together like schoolboys, and oh, doesn’t _that_ send sparks shooting along Merlin’s spine—“God, why the fuck are you _thinking_ right now—”

“Not,” Merlin manages, because he isn’t, not now, not with Gwaine’s cock skidding over the head of his own, and God, he’s so close, too far gone to feel embarrassment when he fucking _whimpers_ , and then it’s on him, the world imploding into white while Gwaine kisses him, stealing the broken moans from his mouth. 

Orgasm leaves him washed out while Gwaine ruts desperately against him, pulling himself off and sucking sloppy kisses against the skin where Merlin’s shoulder meets his neck. It doesn’t take long until Gwaine is coming, his spunk mixing with Merlin’s as it smears between their bellies.

They hang there for a moment, breath knocked out of them. Merlin’s pretty sure Gwaine’s the only thing holding him from sliding to the floor.

“You’re a mess,” Gwaine whispers, and Merlin tips his head against the wall with a lazy smile.

“So’re you,” he points out, and Gwaine eases away to grab some paper towels. They mop themselves up as best they can without speaking, and Merlin tucks in his shirt to hide the worst of the stains. 

“You want to—” Gwaine makes a motion with his head toward the door, and Merlin hides his nervous tremble by wiping his hands carefully dry.

“Sure,” he says, and barely remembers to grab his jacket on the way out. He’s still drunk, can still feel the thrill of alcohol in his blood, but the cold outside helps him recover a little. They duck under an overhand to get out of the rain that’s started falling, and look at each other out of the corners of their eyes, neither quite facing the other.

“So,” Gwaine says, hooking a hand around the back of his own neck and looking rueful. “I feel like an arse.”

Merlin flashes him a quick smile. “Why, do you normally not get off with almost total strangers?”

“Nah,” Gwaine says. “More like I don’t get off with almost total strangers without checking to see what they’re looking around for. I’m not—” he changes his mind, shrugs. “I can’t do serious.” 

“Can’t?” Merlin asks, keeping his voice light. “Or won’t?” Gwaine catches his lip between his teeth; thinking, Merlin supposes, and Christ, it isn’t fair of him to be so damn beautiful.

“Both,” Gwaine decides in the end. He runs a hand over his eyes, and Merlin has a suspicion swimming up out of the haze in his mind.

“Elena?”

“No,” says Gwaine, vehement. “I wouldn’t—we’re not. Not at all.”

Merlin pushes, because he knows what Gwaine is really saying. He’s said it himself, before. “But if you could...”

Gwaine looks at his shoes, scuffs a toe over the ground. “Do you think there’s a one? I mean, that everyone has someone destined for them?”

“No,” Merlin says, blunt, and then thinks about it. “I don’t think so, anyway. Maybe; I mean, how would I know?”

“You know,” Gwaine says, closing his eyes and leaning back to rest his head against the wall. “Maybe you wouldn’t know at first, but one day you turn around after a drugs bust that almost went sour, one where you weren’t sure any of you would get out, and you see her outside, having her arm stitched up in the street because she won’t leave until everything is wrapped up, and you _know_.”

Merlin feels a pang at that, because he’s never felt that; he’s never known half of what he can hear in Gwaine’s voice. “It must be nice, to know that.”

“It’s utter shite.” Gwaine is matter-of-fact, but his eyes are still closed. “She’ll never have me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She told me,” says Gwaine, tilting his head to look at Merlin. “She’ll never give me what I want. If I was after something casual she’d think about it, but I don’t want that. I want everything.”

“That’s depressing.”

Gwaine smiles with an effort. “It’s not so bad. I get to rescue hot boys in alleyways.”

“Stop making me sound like a hooker, Christ,” Merlin complains, shoving Gwaine’s shoulder with his own. Gwaine laughs.

“I really am sorry about that; I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know,” Merlin says, and they lapse into silence, looking at the rain and the cars driving by, windshield wipers slapping frantically back and forth. 

“You’re not just a stand in,” Gwaine says, turning to look at Merlin straight on. “I want you to know that. You’re gorgeous, and fun, and I didn’t pick you out just because I couldn’t have Elena. That’s not what I’m into. All this—I only said it so you know where I stand. And,” he adds, thoughtful, “probably also because I am utterly pissed.”

Merlin thinks about Gwaine, and Elena, and the conviction in Gwaine’s face, and he thinks about Arthur. He thinks about the little twist he’d felt low in his belly when he’d closed his eyes and imagined Arthur with his hand on Merlin’s cock, instead of Gwaine. He swallows. 

“I understand,” he says.

Gwaine seems unconvinced. “Really? I don’t want you to, I don’t know, go home and cry into your pillow or jump off a roof because I was a giant berk to you.” 

“Oh _thanks_ , mate,” Merlin says, rolling his eyes. 

“Okay,” Gwaine amends. “Maybe not that last bit.”

It’s not that it doesn’t suck, but it isn’t as if Merlin’s never dealt with this before. And—this is new—he’s feeling guilty, too, an uncomfortable squirming in his gut reminding him he’s not exactly free of blame himself. He nudges Gwaine’s shoulder with his own. “It’s just fun, yeah? No need to be serious; serious is too complicated.”

Gwaine squints at him. “You sure?” he asks.

“Definitely,” Merlin says. “This—it can be easy, yeah? No strings.”

“Is that what you want?”

“That’s the question I’m supposed to be asking you.”

“Seriously, Merlin,” Gwaine says, looking painfully earnest. “I like you. I think you’re sexy. But if you don’t want this, that’s okay.”

Merlin reaches out to trace Gwaine’s jaw where there’s the barest shadow of a purple mark from Merlin’s mouth. “I promise it’s okay with me.”

Gwaine nods at that, slowly. “It won’t turn weird if we hang out again?”

“Call me anytime,” Merlin says, and means it.

Gwaine gets him a cab, and Merlin manages to sneak into the flat and into his room without waking anyone up—the reckoning will come soon enough, but he doesn’t need to face it while he’s still half-drunk and a little shaken. There’s a tiny part of him that wants to stay up and think about the situation, but he barely manages to get his clothes off before crashing onto the bed and falling asleep more or less instantly.

He wakes up with a mouth that feels like someone’s stuffed it full of cotton, a vague nauseous feeling, and a heavy weight planted firmly on his back. When he tries to roll over, the weight sinks claws through his sheets into his skin.

“Damn it, Baron,” he moans. “Damn you and your damned talons.” The cat only rumbles a purr and kneads Merlin’s spine.

Merlin makes pained, incoherent noises, and squirms frantically upright until Baron is forced to jump down. “You’re not welcome here,” Merlin informs her. “Go away.” She only leaps up onto the desk chair, fixing him with a beady stare before starting to wash with an insulting display of unconcern. 

“Go away,” Merlin repeats, and flops back down on his back. Sleep has fled for good; he needs a glass of water and a large cup of coffee, and he needs to shower off the smell of smoke and sweat and sex, stronger now that he’s paying attention to it. He levers himself up and shuffles out the door, and is halfway to the bathroom next door before he checks himself. It only takes a moment to retrace his steps and grab some clean clothes, keeping one mistrustful eye on the cat. He wouldn’t put it past the creature to wait until he came back, and something about her smirking whiskers makes him feel uncomfortable with the thought of being naked in front of her.

“I have you all figured out,” Merlin warns, and escapes to the shower before he can become any more mental than he already is.

Because the universe hates him, both Will and Freya are awake and waiting for him when he finally braves the common area: Freya leafing through a catalogue at the little table too close to the stove to be comfortable in summertime, and Will flipping desultorily through channels, his head propped on one arm of their ugly armchair and his legs slung over the other.

“The prodigal son returns,” Freya says when Merlin starts fixing his coffee and is just beginning to think he might escape torment. “My, but _someone_ had a good night last night.”

Merlin winces, fighting the urge to reach his hand up to cover the marks on his neck. He’d studied them in the bathroom mirror—just barely purpling, large and dark and unmistakeable—but there’d been no way to hid them all unless he dug out a scarf from his uni days and he’d known Will would only pull it off again, crying about fashion crimes as an excuse to make Merlin’s life miserable.

He sighs, adds another scoop of sugar to his cup for good measure, and ignores the remark.

“You know,” Will says, pausing to watch a woman selling a machine to chop vegetables, “the last time I checked, cannibalism definitely isn’t sexy.”

“Shows what you know,” Merlin says, sticking his head into the fridge to pull out leftover General Tso’s before grabbing a fork and hopping up onto the worktop. 

“Down,” Freya orders. “We don’t know where that arse has been.”

Merlin makes a face. “I showered already,” he points out through a forkful of chicken. “And it hasn’t been anywhere, anyway.”

Freya raises her eyebrows. “You come home looking like someone’s favourite chew toy, and you expect us to believe that?”

“Yes,” Merlin says. “It’s just fun, nothing serious.”

“God, this is going to be just like the Edwin thing all over again, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you, Will, it is _not_.”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. Oh, Edwin just wants to show me his _beetle collection_. Oh, it’s not like I don’t have a pathetic _fear of insects_ —”

“Shut up, that’s not what happened—”

“I was there! I remember!”

“Boys,” Freya interrupts before Merlin can work up the necessary froth to wring Will’s scrawny neck, and they subside. 

“I’m an adult,” Merlin reminds them both. “Gwaine and I both know this is just fun. We had a very mature conversation about it and everything.”

“Was that before or after you let him suck your blood?” Will asks, and Merlin throws the fork at his head. He misses, and Will cackles at his aim, but the conversation drops, to Merlin’s relief.

“You have to call your mother today, O wise and mature adult,” Freya says when Merlin begins eating his food with his fingers.

“Why, to tell her about this?” Merlin asks, horrified.

“No, you idiot,” Freya says, turning a page in her magazine. “You didn’t forget it was her birthday again, did you?”

“Of course not,” Merlin scoffs, and slinks away as soon as he finishes eating to see if he can find a website that does last-minute flower deliveries.

*

The matter more or less subsides after that. Will makes rude comments, but he does that anyway, even when Merlin isn’t going out every week with a bloke and coming home in various states of disarray. Gwaine is fun, uncomplicated; Merlin enjoys their nights. Sometimes they’re by themselves, sometimes Elena or Leon or Percival come along. They go to the movies, dancing, drinking; once, memorably, they go to dinner in a fancy restaurant, and Gwaine makes a mess of Merlin in the bathroom before they’re kicked out. They do what they feel like doing, no strings to worry about, and if Merlin catches Gwaine looking at Elena, that’s okay, because neither of them are in this for anything more than temporary fun.

And it _is_ fun: getting off with Gwaine is exciting and often very nearly a public act and usually ends up with one or the other of them laughing. When Will gets too obnoxious, all Merlin has to do is tell him, in his cheeriest voice, exactly how it felt to have Gwaine’s cock in his mouth, pressing halfway down his throat, how after their latest adventure Merlin had had stubble burn between his thighs for days—and Will sputters, furious, and is quiet for at least a few hours before he recovers enough to start the teasing back up again. 

Merlin likes Gwaine, likes him far better than anyone else he’s dated recently; he only wishes he liked Gwaine a little bit _more_. Even without knowing about Elena, he isn’t sure he’d be able to muster up any deeper feelings for Gwaine than fondness and fluff. Gwaine is easy to be with—too easy. They like the same things, and Gwaine makes him laugh when they do disagree, and somehow they never seem to argue over anything important. Merlin’s always thought about this sort of relationship, the sort where everything is simple and problem-free; he’d supposed it was the ideal, what he should be working for—but now that he’s had a taste of it he yearns for something different. He wants someone to fight with, someone he can dig into and provoke and be provoked in turn; he wants to push the limits of whoever he’s with, challenge and explore with every possibility of explosion.

He wants someone dangerously arrogant with depths they hide away. He wants someone who won’t go along with it when Merlin’s moody or cranky, who’ll jab him in the metaphorical ribs until he sees sense. He wants—but Merlin’s trying hard not to think of what he wants. What he has with Gwaine is good, and uncomplicated, and they both have their eyes open so there’s no looming danger of hurt feelings when they inevitably drift apart.

“So,” Elena says one night, when they’re all at the local Leon prefers because it serves local, organic, microbrewed, environmentally-friendly everything, and Percival has distracted everyone else by schooling them all in darts, leaving Merlin alone with Elena at the table. “You and Gwaine.”

“It’s not like that,” Merlin says. Elena looks surprised, and stops peeling the label off her bottle of Strongbow. “I mean, yeah, sort of, but we’re not—we both know it isn’t going far. It’s only fun.”

Elena hums, and studies him for a minute before looking away to where Gwaine is crowing over coming within twenty points of Percival’s lead. Gwaine catches sight of her and waves, but he’s turned back to the game before either of them wave back. Elena sits back and starts flicking tiny wet pieces of the label at Merlin.

“Oi,” Merlin protests, ducking, but her aim is too good—she hits him in the cheek. 

She gives him a knowing look. “Tell me, then, if it isn’t Gwaine, who are you madly in love with?”

“What?” Merlin says in horror. “No! It’s not me, it’s—” He stops, remembering who he’s talking to just in time. “I am definitely not in love with anyone,” he says instead, laying careful emphasis over the words.

“You’re pining,” she says, sounding far too pleased. “I know the look.”

“I am _not_.”

She sighs, too dramatic for Merlin to take her seriously. “Fine then, ruin my fun. I suppose we’ll just have to get you drunk before you spill your secrets.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Would.”

Merlin realises, aghast, that she probably would, despite the badge at home and her oath to protect and serve, and pulls his drink closer to him in defence. “There’s nothing to spill.”

She grins. “Everyone has something,” she says, tapping a finger to her nose. “I, for example, have a secret burning passion for Andy Murray.”

“That’s not a secret,” Gwaine says, coming up with Leon and Percival trailing behind to lean over the table and steal Merlin’s drink. “Everybody knows _that_.” He brushes his fingers along Merlin’s shoulder, tugging on the thin strands brushing Merlin’s neck. “Come on, Percival needs new people to grind into the dirt. You two are up.”

“I’ve never played,” Merlin confesses, to outraged cries, and follows the newly determined Gwaine with a sense of relief.

He wonders later if Elena’s forgotten about the conversation, but every so often he catches her looking at him pensively, and thinks she’s forgotten it just as much as he has: not at all.

*

Things are going wonderfully, and then Gwen finds out.

It isn’t that Merlin’s been hiding this from her, not really. He’s just... failed repeatedly to mention it, because one unfortunate side effect of her loving, committed relationship with Lance is that she’s taken it upon herself to make sure the world—Merlin, mostly—ends up as incandescently happy as she is.

Afterward, Merlin supposes that the revelation probably would have gone over better had she not walked by him trying to suck out Gwaine’s tonsils by the front door of the strip club they had decided it would be funny to spend the night at. 

“ _Merlin_?”

Merlin freezes, craning his head around to see Gwen standing on the sidewalk, staring, Lance on her arm, and damn, he should have remembered this club was close to their favourite restaurant. 

“Um. Hi.” He twists around to face them, and Gwaine loosens his embrace to let Merlin turn, his arms resting easily on Merlin’s hips. 

“You didn’t tell me you had a new boyfriend,” Gwen says, her voice going up slightly at the end, just enough to test, to make it almost a question, and Gwaine gives a snort which grows into a laugh; Merlin can feel the sound rumbling along his back.

“More like a booty call, really,” Gwaine assures her, jovial. “You’ve nothing to worry about.”

Merlin winces internally, because he’d walked straight into that one. “Don’t say booty call,” he orders Gwaine sternly, before looking back at Gwen and saying, as brightly as he can, “I don’t want to keep you; you’ll miss your reservation. Have a good night!”

Gwen, bless her heart and every single hair on her head, narrows her eyes but doesn’t push, nodding to them as she and Lance walk off. Merlin sags against Gwaine in relief, but he knows her too well to think the whole thing is over.

“I don’t understand,” she says over coffee two days later: an invitation Merlin had known better than to refuse. 

He shrugs, toying with a spoon. “It’s not complicated. We’re friends; we get together on the weekends.”

“And kiss.”

“That too.” He leaves out the bit about mutually satisfactory orgasms, but she probably knows that anyway. The strip club had not exactly been subtle about its advertisement. 

“I just don’t think it’s healthy for you,” she says, and Merlin sighs.

“Gwen—”

“I know, I know; I’m not trying to be your mother. I’m still allowed to worry about you, though.”

“You worry too much,” he says, dropping the spoon to reach for her hand.

“No such thing,” she says, smiling. “But really, Merlin, what about that boy you met skiing? That never worked out? He seemed nice.”

“Nice?” Merlin says, incredulous. “He stood me up and hasn’t contacted me since he left. How is that _nice_?”

“He let you stay at his place instead of letting you die in a blizzard.”

“Because he felt guilty for running me over,” Merlin counters, though the words don’t sit quite right. He still can’t shake the nagging feeling that it had seemed like more than that, but...

But Arthur hadn’t shown up at the lodge. But Arthur hasn’t sent so much as one line of an email. But Arthur was an enormous git.

Gwen makes a disapproving noise. “I liked him better anyway; he seemed more grounded.”

“You never even met him!”

“I still liked him better.”

Merlin blows out an exasperated breath up through his teeth so that his fringe flies up, but he shakes his head ruefully anyway. “You’re impossible,” he says, letting go of her hand to sip his coffee, and before she can tell him the same, he asks after the wedding plans.

It’s the right thing to do. Gwen gives him a look that says clearly she knows she’s being distracted, but she’s willing to let it go in return for an attentive audience. “You will not _believe_ the rates some of these florists charge for a few scraggly weeds,” she says, putting both hands on the table for emphasis, and Merlin leans forward to hear the latest in floral injustice, pushing any lingering thoughts of Arthur from his mind.

They take the Tube together afterward; the evening has advanced almost without them noticing until the shadows are long and deep and the weak sun has only moments before it disappears entirely. The routine is familiar; the coffee shop is their favourite, and they’ve become regular customers since Gwen moved in with Lance and Merlin found new flatmates in Will and Freya. He misses Gwen sometimes; she has a cooler head than either Freya or Will, and shares his shameless love for romantic period movies, but he supposes it’s a good thing she isn’t around all the time anymore, or they’d drive each other batty. 

Gwen’s stop is first—before ducking out the doors onto the platform she gives Merlin a peck on the cheek.

“Take care of yourself, Merlin.”

“I always do,” he says, with a smile for her benefit, and she rolls her eyes before leaving him slouched in one of the uncomfortable seats as the doors close and the train lurches forward again. He leans his head back, tipping it from side to side to make the bones crackle in his neck, and thinks about Arthur. He thinks about all the bookmarks he still has of YouTube channels and skiing websites, the jargon dictionaries and Wikipedia pages; considers all the emails Arthur hasn’t sent. He thinks about the connection he’d thought they’d had despite Arthur’s arseishness—a feeling that had felt like it could be home—which now seems no more than wisps of a dream, as if maybe it had never been there at all.

Three stops beyond Gwen’s flat, Merlin gets off and switches lines, finally emerging across the city from his own home. He calls Gwaine once he’s aboveground again; he can’t think about Arthur anymore, has to lay the thoughts he’s almost unconsciously built up around Arthur to rest entirely.

The phone rings long enough that Merlin’s about to hang up before the voicemail can pick up when Gwaine answers.

“Merlin, didn’t expect to hear from you today.”

“Er,” Merlin says, wrong-footed for a moment. Gwaine sounds distracted. “I was just passing through your neighbourhood, thought I could stop by for a bit if you’re not busy?”

“No,” Gwaine says, and then, flustered, clarifies: “I mean, sure, come on over; I’m not busy.” He says something indistinct, as if he’s cupped a hand over the phone while he’s talking to someone else. “Let me know when you’re here and I’ll buzz you up,” he adds, voice clear once more.

“I don’t want to interrupt anything—”

“’Course not!” Gwaine says, and there, finally, is the Gwaine Merlin knows, sounding warm and jovial, the strained tone vanished from his voice. Even so, Merlin takes the stairs slowly when he reaches Gwaine’s building, not stalling but not quite willing to rush up to the second floor in case everything falls apart when he walks inside Gwaine’s flat.

Gwaine opens the door with a smile, and Merlin wonders if he’s imagining the slight bit of strain behind Gwaine’s eyes. 

“Come on in,” says Gwaine, and Merlin steps past him to see Elena fiddling with the kettle, her hair swept into a hasty bun.

“Hi, Merlin,” she says while Merlin’s mind is busy trying to put the facts into any order other than the one that first occurred to him. “Do you want a cuppa? I’ve just put the water on.”

“No, thanks,” Merlin says, and it’s like he’s swimming through marmalade, through something viscous that pulls down on all his limbs until there’s nothing he can do but sink. “I just stopped by for a moment—Gwaine, I think I left my book here?”

Gwaine isn’t inches from a promotion to detective for nothing. “Yeah, hang on and I’ll get it for you.”

Merlin fiddles with the worn hem of his hoody and takes the biscuits Elena offers him. They don’t speak much: he’s too preoccupied with not looking directly at her to make conversation.

“Here you go,” Gwaine says, emerging once more to hand Merlin an unfamiliar book. “The Asimov, wasn’t it?”

“Sure. That’s it.” It’s a new copy of a book Merlin had read before he was thirteen, back when he was still convinced that robots were the future and that he would lead them to space and further. Funny, he thinks; he hasn’t thought about it in years. “Thanks,” he says, belatedly remembering he’s intruding and should leave. “I’ll see you two Saturday?” They’ve all arranged to go see a film; Merlin had been intending on seeing how quiet Gwaine could be in the cinema, but now he thinks his plans might have just changed. 

Elena smiles—are her lips pinker than usual, Merlin wonders, puffy from kisses, or is he imagining it? “Looking forward to it,” she says. 

Gwaine follows Merlin out the door onto the landing, closing the door behind him. “Merlin, look—”

“If you’re about to apologise, please don’t,” Merlin tells him. He feels brittle around the edges, but it’s something he can control as long as Gwaine keeps himself together. “We knew what we were getting into.”

Gwaine sticks his hands into his pockets, studying Merlin. “I suppose we did.”

“Are you—” Merlin says, jerking his chin toward the door and letting the question trail off. Gwaine shrugs, but there’s something at the corners of his mouth giving him away. 

“Too early to tell.”

“Is she still the one?”

Gwaine looks at the door, hunching his shoulders, and then stands tall again. “I think so.”

Merlin cuffs him with an enthusiasm he doesn’t truly feel. “Then go back in there and get her, idiot.”

Gwaine has him tight in an embrace before Merlin has time to react. “Gwaine, seriously,” he gasps, because Gwaine’s arms are made of iron and it’s impossible to breathe when they’re squeezing all of the air out of his chest. “This is unnecessary, _ow_.”

“It is necessary,” Gwaine tells him firmly, and crushes him for a few more seconds before releasing him. “Now you can go. You promise to be there on Saturday?”

“I promise. I’ll have to return your book, after all.” 

Gwaine shrugs. “It was a gift from my mum a few years ago. I haven’t read it yet. You don’t want to keep it?”

“I’ve already read it.” His own copy had disappeared years ago, left behind somewhere in the moves back and forth from uni; he hasn’t read it in years but he doesn’t need to: he still remembers everything important that happens.

“Saturday, then.”

Merlin nods and starts down the steps. He looks back when he’s halfway down and sees no one on the landing—Gwaine’s already gone back inside, back to taking cautious steps forward with Elena.

*


	4. Chapter 4

:::

_And I know that you are just like me  
Oversensitive  
We’re an ordinary breed  
Taking everything for much more than what it means  
Oh well it’s dangerous  
And it’s sweet  
Cut us and we bleed_

:::

 

Merlin goes to the cinema on Saturday, to prove he can cope with this, to show he’s fine with Gwaine finally figuring things out, but he begs off the pub after, going home instead to fight with Baron over the armchair and indulge in a little self-pity. He mopes because he’s allowed to, and steals Freya’s biscuits again and lets Gwen smooth his forehead. He’s careful not to indulge too much, though, because he isn’t heartbroken, not truly. Gwaine had been fun to be with, had been playful and hadn’t let Merlin take himself too seriously, but Merlin still remembers their conversation from the first night and the concept niggles at the back of his mind, as if he’s remembering a hob he hadn’t turned off. Gwaine had never felt essential, never felt like anything close to being a possible _one_ for Merlin; Merlin suspects the reverse is also true, and though it hurts his pride a bit it doesn’t bother him too much. He still sees Gwaine from time to time, but Gwaine has finally been promoted and suddenly has no time to spend anywhere that isn’t his office or a crime scene, and Merlin himself is busy with the plans Gaius has drawn up for expanding the shop.

Spring advances, too, and Merlin’s never been able to hold onto grudges in the springtime. It feels wrong somehow, as if his anger would be a personal affront to the tender leaves just beginning to poke out of the wet earth. 

Life has barely begun to settle when Merlin opens his email and there’s a message from apendragon, no subject, and he stares at it for a good long while before glancing around cautiously by instinct and opening it. It’s short, barely a few lines long. _I won another competition_ , Merlin reads—he’d known that, had seen the results of the final because he’d never bothered to deactivate the feeds which tell him about every move the skiing community makes. _Feeling pretty good about myself_ , the email continues. _Think I might need antoher egoshrinking_ , Arthur writes, and mentions that he remembers Merlin lives in London, and could they meet up over the weekend, maybe? It’s poorly spelled and the punctuation is atrocious to the point of nonexistence, as if Arthur had typed it out in a hurry. 

Merlin sits back, staring at the computer screen, and opens up a reply. He tries thirteen different openings for the email before giving up and closing out of his browser. It’s only Tuesday, he tells himself; he has a few days to think.

Gwen wrestles the story out of him on Thursday, and her eyes go wide when he’s honest and says he hasn’t replied yet.

“I’ll send him something later today,” Merlin hedges, but she’s having none of it.

“Oh no you don’t, Merlin Emrys,” she says, and follows him home. “I know you,” she tells him after she’s made him open his email and show her the message, and just before she has Will pin him to the floor by sitting on him so she can send Arthur a reply. “You’ll never do anything about this unless someone forces you.”

“You are dictators, both of you,” says Merlin, muffled by the carpet. Will shifts his weight, pressing an elbow under Merlin’s shoulder blade by accident. Merlin yells, and Will pats his head in an insulting apology. “I’ll get you for this.”

Gwen makes soothing noises. “Of course you will. Just remember to invite us to the wedding.”

“There isn’t going to _be_ a wedding,” Merlin objects, horrified, but by the time he wriggles free and rescues his computer the damage is already done. There’s a reply from Arthur with a place and a time, and even though Merlin slams the door behind Gwen to relieve his feelings, he’s already thinking that it would be rude to cancel after that—wouldn’t it?

*

Merlin makes himself wait in the stairway of his building until he’s sure he’ll be at least fifteen minutes late. He hadn’t been able to wait inside the flat, because although Will is out, Freya is in and has been colluding with Gwen like the traitor she is. He’d fled as soon as he could, but he’s damned if he’ll show up early in order to be stood up _again_ , so he hides in the stairwell, picking at the dry mud on his shoes and breathing through his mouth. The stairs are relatively clean, better than most, but there’s still a faint scent of piss lingering somewhere, and it’s a relief to finally escape into the damp freshness of early spring.

The breeze still has enough teeth that Merlin wishes he’d brought more than his jumper, but the air smells like growing things: there are flowers poking up out of the earth and the first buds are on the trees. The colours are pale still, waiting for the first really sunny day to warm them into vibrancy, but the fact that there is colour at all makes Merlin more cheerful than he would have been otherwise.

Arthur’s already at the café, sitting near the front windows and looking chic in pressed trousers and a collared shirt the colour of the new leaves on the poplar tree outside. The café is full of couples out for a cosy brunch, all dressed up in fine linens and silky dresses and cashmeres, and Merlin spends a useless moment hesitating before he approaches the table, feeling conspicuously out of place in his jeans and best jumper, but then Arthur notices him and smiles, jumping up to shake his hand.

“Merlin! I’m glad you came.”

“It’s been a while,” Merlin says, sliding into the chair Arthur pulls out for him, but he feels a little better.

Arthur looks abashed for a moment, but the expression smoothes out quickly. “How is the chemist’s?”

“It’s fine,” Merlin replies, surprised that Arthur had remembered. “And the skiing?”

“Fine. I won a few things.”

“I gathered that from your email. It’s why I’m here, right?” 

Arthur looks away, and while Merlin’s cursing himself for the comment, the waiter comes over to take their order, rescuing both of them.

“Earl Grey,” Arthur says. “No sugar, a drop of milk. And a plate of the scones. Merlin?”

“Coffee,” says Merlin, because he hasn’t even glanced at the menu yet and it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

The waiter doesn’t even have a pad to scribble on. “Cream and sugar, sir?” Merlin wonders if it’s just because their orders aren’t complicated, or if it’s a prerequisite for waiters in fancy restaurants to have total memory recall or something. 

“Please,” Merlin says, and the waiter collects the menus and sweeps away. Merlin smoothes a wrinkle out of the white tablecloth, and adjusts the spoon next to his plate. There’s a seaside theme on both: a winding parade of delicate seashells around the edges of plate and down the handle of the spoon. Arthur clears his throat.

“What have you been up to? You can’t be in the shop _all_ the time.”

The waiter pours Merlin’s cup of coffee and leaves a small silver pitcher of cream with a box of six different sorts of sugar, and Merlin uses the opportunity to control the blush he knows is rising up his neck. He’s not going to mention Gwaine, not here. “That’s mostly it, really,” he offers, drizzling cream into the coffee, and Arthur makes a noise of disgust.

“Either that is an outrageous lie, or you are the boringest sod in all of England.”

“Boringest isn’t a word,” Merlin points out.

Arthur waves a hand regally, dismissing the objection, and takes the cup of tea the waiter deposits in front of him. “Come on, spill. Tell me all about the shocking adventures of shop assistants.”

“Well,” Merlin starts, “there was this one adventure—well, I’m not sure I would call it an _adventure_ , not really...”

Arthur leans forward, tea forgotten, his eyes bright; Merlin thinks he looks like nothing so much as a little boy about to hear a favourite story, and forgets to be embarrassed.

“So,” he starts, enjoying the attention, “whenever I go away on holiday, Gaius—that’s the chemist—hires this lunatic to cover for me.”

“Lunatic is a strong word,” Arthur says.

“No, really,” Merlin assures him. “This one’s raving. Wait until I get to the bit with the feathers.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow. “Continue, by all means.”

Merlin tells him about Cedric, and the cloak, and the flapping, and stumbles over himself when he belatedly tries to avoid mentioning Gwaine, but in the end Arthur saves him by asking about smoking—entirely disapproving, Merlin figures it must be because he’s an athlete and obsessed with health perfection—so Merlin has to explain about the smoke break concept, and by the time Arthur’s finished laughing about that Merlin’s eaten three of Arthur’s five scones without really noticing it and they’re fighting over the last.

“Get off, they’re my scones!” Arthur says when Merlin tries to bring his fork into play as a defensive weapon. 

Merlin tries his best woebegone look. “I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Order your own, idiot; I’m paying,” Arthur shoots back, in a spectacular show of reasons why Merlin shouldn’t be so distracted by the curve of his jaw. “Why haven’t you had breakfast? It’s almost afternoon.”

“It’s not noon yet; it’s still breakfast time,” Merlin says while Arthur motions for a menu. “And I didn’t eat before I came here because I couldn’t get into my flat.”

“What, did you lock yourself out?”

“I have never locked myself out of anywhere in years,” says Merlin, primly. “Unlike _some_ people—”

“Still doesn’t answer the question of why you couldn’t get into your own flat.” Arthur hands over the menu. Merlin flips it open, but doesn’t really look at it. He sighs.

“I was trying to avoid my flatmate.”

“That’s a classic,” Arthur says, and Merlin can’t resist.

“As if you’d know, Mr Sixteen-Houses.”

“It’s not sixteen!” Arthur protests. “It’s not even _close_. And the one in France is—”

“—a dump,” Merlin finishes for him, grinning. “You told me. Don’t worry, your highness, I’m sure it still serves to house all your trophies. I won’t tell anyone about the special butler you hired to polish your latest FIS medal.”

“The special butler is only polishes the first-place overall trophies,” Arthur says, pulling a face. “Anything less doesn’t qualify.” He cocks his head at Merlin. “How’d you know about that, anyway?”

“Er,” Merlin says, backpedalling and lifting his menu as a distracting shield. “I heard about it on the news?”

“Bollocks,” says Arthur. “None of the news companies keep track of the World Cup points for skiing. They’re all too busy salivating over football and cricket.”

Merlin sinks lower down behind his menu. “I might have looked up some of the events,” he says, mumbling into the section of the menu detailing seven different types of eggs. 

“Oh,” Arthur says, looking surprised and a little pleased, going a bit pink, and Merlin stops considering the merits of eggs benedict and sits up further. “You watched them?”

“Maybe some of them,” Merlin acknowledges. “Just to see how far your britches were going to need to be let out.”

Arthur laughs. “Not very much, I’m afraid. It wasn’t my best season.”

“I don’t know about that,” Merlin says. “But I’m pretty sure your ego grew a bit fat off of all those pretty little crystal globes they gave you.” 

“Only one,” Arthur says. A shadow flickers across his face; the corner of his mouth works for a moment. “Not much of an ego boost.”

“Still,” Merlin decides, “you made a killing in Austria while you were there. All those flashy little turns—”

“It’s slalom, Merlin, flashy little turns is not exactly—”

“What’s-his-face is probably turning in his grave as we speak.”

“ _Hermann Maier_ ,” Arthur says, sternly, “is still alive, and I don’t even come close to touching him.”

“Bet you could. You have a better name, anyway.”

Arthur gives Merlin an exasperated look, but he’s smiling anyway. Merlin feels smug. 

Arthur leans an elbow on the table, playing with the crumbs on his plate. “Did you know there’s never been a single British skier that’s won the World Cup? Or even medalled at the Olympics, for that matter?”

“I didn’t,” Merlin says. “But I’m sure you’re about to tell me all about it.”

“The English invented slalom!” Arthur tells him. “Well, not really, it was probably the bloody Norwegians, but it was all higgledy-piggledy until Lunn came along and cleaned it up for the National Ski Championship—”

Merlin lets Arthur get worked up, uses the opportunity to study him without being obvious about it. He’s cut his hair shorter, and the long sleeves of his shirt do nothing to hide the muscles of his arms. Merlin wonders idly how he’s built up the muscles there, since as far as he can tell skiers only use their arms for balance and to hit things out of their way. Arthur has a nice voice, he thinks; there’s a warmth in it that takes the edge off of his teasing, and a particular cadence, soothing in its regular rise and fall—

“You’re not listening, are you?”

Merlin snaps out of his reverie, blinking “Of course I am. I’ve learned a great deal about how much of a glorified ski bum you actually are.”

Arthur tries to look outraged, but he ends up laughing anyway. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

“I’m always fair,” Merlin says. “It’s all part of my dashing charm.”

“Dashing is not exactly the word I would use to describe you.” Arthur puts his hand on the menu Merlin still has propped up in front of him, pushing it down flat on the table. “Have you decided what you’re going to have for breakfast yet?”

Merlin hasn’t, not really, which leads to a fierce debate over eggs; a topic Merlin had never really thought of as something to argue over before.

“Poaching means stealing,” Arthur says, looking as wounded as if Merlin had personally insulted him. “Of course you’d like stolen eggs.”

“At least my eggs will be cooked,” Merlin argues. “At least I’m not going to get salmonella poisoning and die.”

“You’re impossible,” Arthur says, and tries to order for Merlin anyway. It takes a silent, furious fight and some behaviour which is probably wildly inappropriate for the café they’re in, but Merlin wins, which is what counts. The waiter beats a hasty retreat, looking appalled, but at least he’s carrying Merlin’s order of poached eggs, not Arthur’s order of bacteria colonies arranged artistically on a plate.

Arthur orders orange juice while they’re waiting, and Merlin discovers that as fancy as the café pretends to be it still has endless coffee refills, and the egg argument is tactfully left behind in favour of less fraught topics.

“You’re an idiot,” Arthur says, glowering. “How can you argue against Casablanca? That movie is perfection in story form; it has all the elements of—”

“Sure, if you like your protagonists tall, handsome, and chainsmoking while they nurse a grudge before they _give up_ the chance to live their dream. It’s not even the real story, anyway; they had to change the ending because of the censors. In the original script Rick ran away with Ilsa to live out his days in happiness and sin.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, what movie would _you_ say is the greatest of all time?”

“Star Wars,” Merlin says promptly, before he thinks better of it. “Return of the Jedi. All of them, really—the originals, that is; the new ones were all crap.”

Arthur makes a face. “You would, wouldn’t you. Have you been to the conventions?”

“No,” Merlin says. He’s only lying a tiny bit. It hadn’t been a Star Wars convention; it had only been a booth at the Expo. “How do you know there are conventions, anyway? I thought you were high and mighty and above everything plebeian.”

“I’m not an idiot, I know what conventions are.”

“No,” Merlin allows. “I suppose you’re not an idiot.” He wants to follow up with something cutting, but he can’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound weak or too contrived to bear, because Arthur really _isn’t_ an idiot. Behind the bravado and the rich-boy blindness, Arthur is intelligent; Merlin barely knows Arthur and he can already tell that Arthur usually knows what he’s talking about. It’s maddening, because being smart makes Arthur overconfident and makes it easy for him to think already he knows everything there is to know, but Merlin finds he doesn’t really mind it too much. He’s a little horrified as he realises he genuinely likes Arthur, not only because Arthur is attractive but because he’s so much fun to argue with.

When his eggs come, Merlin eats slowly, too busy elaborating on everything he hated about Camus to pay much attention to the salad they’re arranged on. Arthur orders a sandwich, and the brunch ends up dragging on long into the afternoon; they talk more about movies and books and slide into sports and Arthur’s guilty love for hockey—“I spent four years of my life in a tiny school near the Canadian border, I had to have something to pass the time,” he says, and Merlin rolls his eyes and tells him that _most_ boys accumulate stacks of dirty magazines, which serve to pass the time admirably, something Arthur pretends to be shocked about—and somehow Merlin finds himself telling Arthur about his mum, about the fight she’s been mired in for years about NHS reform, how Merlin always manages to forget her birthday until the last minute, and how she always feeds him too much when he’s at home.

Arthur looks wistful; Merlin remembers too late about Arthur’s mother and curses himself for being an idiot. Arthur recovers quickly, though, and changes the subject.

“Nasty scratch,” he says, nodding at Merlin’s forearm, where there are three puffy red lines running diagonally across Merlin’s skin. “What happened?”

“Oh, these.” Merlin resists the urge to cover them. They’d been hidden before, but he’d pushed the sleeves of his jumper up as the sun gradually moved until it was shining directly in through the window onto the table. “My flatmate has a cat.”

“A cat,” Arthur repeats. “Aren’t they supposed to be aloof and too busy destroying furniture to claw up your arms?”

“You’ve obviously never lived with a cat.”

Arthur shrugs. “So what if I haven’t?”

“Cats are terrible, vicious creatures; I’d trade it in for a dog any day, if I could.”

“I don’t know about that,” Arthur says. “Dogs are messier. And they can be more vicious than any cat.”

“Cats sit around and actively plot your demise.”

“ _Your_ demise, maybe. I don’t blame them.”

“I bet you were attacked when you were young, weren’t you? Some great big Doberman ran at you and now you have an irrational fear you’ve never been able to shake.”

Arthur looks uncomfortable. “Not exactly.”

“I knew it!” Merlin crows, triumphant. “Do you have a scar? Do you have nightmares? Does your therapist know about it?”

“It’s not a fear,” says Arthur. He gives Merlin a sour look. “It’s more a... an aversion, really.”

“To big, scary dogs.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No,” he says, “big dogs are alright. They’re just sort of goofy, most of the time. And they drool too much.”

“So, what,” Merlin presses, feeling the beginnings of satisfying mockery bubbling up somewhere around his sternum; “Are you afraid of _small_ dogs?”

“It’s an _aversion_ , I told you!”

“You are!” Merlin says gleefully. “You have a terrible, secret fear of tiny dogs; I bet you have to leave the room whenever a teacup poodle walks in. This is _brilliant_.”

“I do not,” says Arthur. “It’s a perfectly natural reaction, and you’re jumping to all the wrong conclusions—”

The tinny sound of Lady Gaga ordering them all to put their paws up interrupts him, which only increases Merlin’s delight. Arthur turns to dig through the suit jacket he’d draped over his chair. “My sister changed the ringtone,” he says defensively; “I haven’t been able to change it yet because she’s insufferable and locked the damned thing.”

“Of course,” Merlin agrees, but his grin is probably too wide and giving him away.

“Hello?” Arthur says, without looking at the screen before answering, and his face freezes, almost imperceptibly. “Father. Yes, I—”

He pauses, and Merlin looks at the table, scraping the tines of his fork slowly through the little puddles of dressing left on his plate, pretending not to listen.

“Right now? Can’t that wait until later? I’m out—of course. Yes. I understand. I’ll meet you there. Of course. Right away.”

Merlin glances back up when Arthur sets the phone down. Arthur looks apologetic. “I’m terribly sorry,” he says, and Merlin wants to make fun of him for going posh all of a sudden but he has no stomach for it. “If I said it was work and I didn’t really want to leave, would you believe me?”

Merlin considers his answers. “It is your work,” he says, finally. “Don’t worry about it; I’ve taken up most of your day already.”

Arthur looks more regretful, and Merlin wonders if this is the point at which he should offer to leave his number.

“Look,” Arthur says, interrupting the thought, “I’ve really enjoyed this—spending time with you. And don’t say anything about shrinking my ego, because that’s not all it is. This isn’t really what I... well, it’s out of character, but here.” He fishes in his pockets for a moment, and comes up with a biro and a scrap of paper that looks like an old shopping list. “Here’s my address,” he says, flipping the paper over and scrawling something on the back of it. “And my number; tell Geoffrey I said to let you in. I shouldn’t be long. How do you feel about making dinner again?”

Merlin stares at him, stunned, and automatically accepts the paper when Arthur pushes it at him. “Fine,” he manages after a moment. “That would be—fine.” He struggles for something else to say, but Arthur is already out of his chair, grabbing his jacket and smiling at Merlin before leaving, trapping the waiter in the back and handing over a credit card. In less time than it takes Merlin to process everything, he’s gone, striding off down the street while he shrugs on his jacket. It fits him well, Merlin thinks, watching through the window; it slides smoothly over his broad shoulders. He looks at the piece of paper he’s holding for a moment longer, then slips it into his pocket before walking out of the café on his own to wander around London.

Despite Arthur’s assurances, Merlin’s sure it’ll be at least a few hours before he’ll show up at his house: enough time for a minor crisis. It’s not the first time Merlin’s been invited back to someone’s place after a date, but it’s certainly the _strangest_ way he’s been invited. Usually it’s quite a bit later, there’s something other than dinner on the menu, and he hasn’t been left alone to find the place by himself. He thinks about not going, about accepting the day as it’s been and not pushing for more; he isn’t interested in a repeat of the lodge incident. But it isn’t as if Arthur can leave Merlin hanging this time, not unless he doesn’t come home at all—and Merlin doesn’t think Arthur would do that. Arthur’s a man most comfortable on his own turf; he’d seen that before, at Arthur’s cabin. That dinner had been good, whatever else happened. It would have been a good accidental first date if Arthur hadn’t skipped the second and been an arse about it on top of leaving Merlin confused about what Arthur was really looking for.

Merlin still doesn’t know that; can’t tell if this is just a dinner invitation as a friend or a way for Arthur to decide if he wants something more. He’s made it to the Thames by now, and stares at the water. It still looks steely and cold, despite the sun’s best efforts; Merlin turns away from it and leans his elbows back on the rail, ignoring the pedestrians who give him nasty looks for stopping and taking up space in their way.

He’d had a good time at the café. He likes Arthur. He’d already known that, he supposes—all he has to do is look at his internet history since January—but it had still surprised him, how much he’d enjoyed Arthur’s company, the sheer pleasure of it.

He wraps the paper around his fingers absently, curling the edges. Fuck it, he decides. Arthur had invited him, had offered dinner; Merlin would be a fool to turn him down just because he’s not sure what might happen. _Carpe diem_ and all that, and besides, Gwen and Freya will inevitably find out and make his life a misery if he doesn’t go. He stands straight and squares his shoulders. It doesn’t matter what happens after, he thinks; the main thing in life is that you show up, right?

The address Arthur had given him is in Mayfair. Of course it is, Merlin thinks, stepping carefully past the stately houses, checking the numbers and pretending he doesn’t feel wildly out of place among the severely groomed rosebushes. There are Ferraris and Porsches parked in the street, terraces and boxes in the windows filled with flowers despite the wintery nip that lingers in the air. The neighbourhood is stone and brick and understated in a way only the truly posh can achieve, but the skin between Merlin’s shoulder blades still creeps; everything exudes money—the air itself feels heavy with it. He spends a block trying to place the feeling, and decides that it must be the streets and sidewalks, which are absolutely clean. There isn’t a speck of rubbish to be seen; Merlin wonders if there’s some sort of magic the residents employ to banish it before it hits the street. 

Arthur’s door is red, of course, with an elaborate frame. Geoffrey turns out to be the ancient butler— _butler_ , Merlin thinks, biting back a laugh; he is going to give Arthur so much trouble over that—and he eyes Merlin suspiciously but says that young master Arthur—another gem to add to Merlin’s growing arsenal—had called ahead and said that Merlin would be coming by Pendragon House.

“This way, sir,” Geoffrey says, shuffling through the entrance hall and showing Merlin into a smaller side room. He leaves Merlin there, with a look that says if he weren’t so well-bred he’d like to give Merlin a lecture on not touching anything with his dirty plebeian fingers. Merlin nods politely to him, and once he’s gone, collapses into an uncomfortable chair with elaborately carved wooden arms and velvet cushions. 

He’d known Arthur had money; that much had been obvious, and Arthur had admitted it. He hadn’t known _how much_ money—not until walking into the house. The room he’s in is all in shades of blue broken up by dark polished wood, and he’s sure that nothing in it is less than a hundred years old. He stands up again, irrationally worried that his jeans will stain the chair he’s in or it’ll break under him; he wouldn’t be surprised if it was worth more than his yearly salary. 

The room doesn’t hold his interest for long. There’s an itchiness beneath his skin, a prickling feeling he can’t shake, fuelled by the house and the cups of coffee he’d lost count of in the café, and he spends a few minutes examining the view from the windows before peering out the door. Geoffrey is nowhere in sight, and Merlin seizes the opportunity to slip out and explore.

He doesn’t go far; it’s enough that he isn’t sitting alone in a room, feeling trapped. He’s wandering around the entrance hall, looking at the portraits lining the wall and planning all of the ego-deflating things he is going to say to Arthur about this disaster of a house—crystal chandeliers? _seriously_?—when there’s a voice from above.

“God, not another one.”

Merlin looks up, craning his head, and sees a striking woman leaning over the ornate rail of the staircase which twists down from the second floor. It takes him a moment, but he vaguely recognises her: she’s been wreaking havoc in the women’s GS competitions all winter, though her name evades him at the moment.

She sweeps down the stairs—there’s no other word for the way she moves, like an inevitable storm coming toward him. Sophia, he remembers now, a Belgian skier who’s almost more famous for her spectacular break-up with Valiant than her career. Arthur had been involved in that somehow, Merlin remembers vaguely, or she had been involved in the fight between Val and Arthur; he thinks there are pictures of her with Arthur on her arm. She looks different out of her racing suit and trademark knitted hat, but it’s definitely her, even dressed up in a flowing skirt which falls at her knees and a low-cut yellow top. Merlin takes a step back, almost unconsciously putting his back to the wall.

When Sophia reaches the bottom of the stairs, she stops, crossing her arms, and they stare at each other across the hall for a moment. 

“Hi,” Merlin finally says when the silence gets uncomfortable. He gives a little wave, and when her expression doesn’t change, he lowers his arm slowly, feeling awkward under her scrutiny.

“His taste is growing worse,” she announces, apropos of nothing, just when Merlin is thinking he might stage a strategic retreat to the blue room. 

“Pardon?” Merlin says, unsure what she means. If she means the décor, he thinks, he’ll agree without hesitation.

She steps off of the last stair, trailing one delicate hand unnecessarily over the rail as she does so. “I’ll make this clear.” Her accent is barely there, a soft burr over the consonants; Merlin can only just pick it out. “You,” she says, “are not to expect more than is being given to you.”

He doesn’t have time to wonder what she means. “You are not to stay the night,” she continues. “You are certainly not to expect anything more after today.” She smiles—a cold smile, full of too many teeth. “You must realise that you are—how should I say it—the itch-scratcher. Arthur is a passionate man; he knows his needs. So do I. As long as _you_ respect the rules—” Merlin can almost hear the pointing finger in her voice, though she doesn’t raise her arm, “—we will all be able to tolerate each other for the day, yes?”

She’s come to a stop in front of him, close enough that she can smell her perfume: something sweet, almost cloying as it wraps tendrils through the air around him. He stares at her, resisting the urge to punch her teeth in, and belatedly realises he’s supposed to offer something to her, some sign he’s understood what she’s saying. “Of course,” he says, stiffly, and she gives him another unfriendly smile. 

Her expression says she’d like him to move, vanish magically from her sight, but he only crosses his arms and stands there mulishly, unwilling to let her see him retreat. In the end she doesn’t say anything more, just moves off as if that’s what she’d been planning to do all along, sashaying down a corridor deeper into the house. Merlin waits until she’s gone, then digs around for the paper Arthur had given him and a stubby pencil that’s been in his pocket for ages.

The note he leaves is as polite as he can make it, because he isn’t sure who else might see it before Arthur, but it’s scathing nevertheless; he doesn’t care about holding back all of the bitterness sitting in the back of his throat. He puts it next to the door on a table with twin golden cherubs holding it up, their cheeks fat from smiling, and lets himself back out into the street. 

It’s started raining again, a steady drizzle, and he’s soaked through by the time he gets to his flat. By some miracle neither Freya nor Will are around to dig for all the details—the first luck he’s had all day. He locks his door, because he knows his flatmates too well to trust them to respect anyone’s privacy, kicks off his shoes, and crawls into bed, pulling the covers over his head. His clothes are getting his blanket wet, and later he’ll probably be cold and uncomfortable, but he can’t muster up the energy to peel them off. 

Later, he thinks; he’ll deal with it all later.

*

The next morning he throws everything—jumper, jeans, sheets—in the corner to wash when he comes home, and slips out of the flat to work before anyone else is up. He feels no desire to wallow any further; he doesn’t want to allow Arthur even that much satisfaction. Gaius raises an eyebrow when Merlin shows up early, but he puts Merlin to work without saying much of anything, which suits Merlin exactly. There’s a ringing in his ears, tinny and distant; no matter how many boxes he stacks he can’t quite get Arthur’s voice out of his head, saying _You just can’t resist me_ over and over again.

It could have been true, Merlin thinks, allowing himself a brief taste of the bitterness that lurks heavy in the back of his throat. Arthur has duped him twice now, and Merlin knows he’d never have managed it if Merlin hadn’t been willing to go along with everything. But the existence of Sophia—that’s the last card in the deck. Merlin won’t fall into Arthur’s trap again. Merlin might have a weakness for men who turn out to be tossers, and he’s done some spectacularly idiotic things in the past, but he won’t be the other woman. Man. Whatever. It’s one line he won’t allow himself to ever cross; there are too many thorns wrapped up in that basket for him to want it.

He sticks to the back, which is full of plaster dust but partially blocked off by a sign which says _Please excuse our mess_ and therefore is free of customers, and ticks through the things Gaius needs done for the renovation furiously. It isn’t as if Arthur’s invitation had been specific, he reminds himself. Arthur hadn’t promised a thing, not really: he could have been inviting Merlin over for dinner just as a friend—but in his heart Merlin doesn’t really believe that. Arthur’s voice in his head mixes with the look of distaste on Sophia’s face, all of it rising until he can barely see the words in front of him and he forces himself to sit on the floor, pushing his palms down hard onto the tile, not caring that they’re immediately covered in grit. He takes a deep breath, and another, and forces all of it away, crushing Arthur into a tiny box in his mind and shutting the lid firmly. 

When his mind is clear, when he can once again let the minutiae of logistics numb everything else, he stands up and brushes himself off, picking up his papers again with no thought for anything but the next item on the list.

The peaceful suspension of being can’t last long, though, and it’s shattered the moment Merlin drags himself back to his flat.

“I’ll smash the bastard’s head in,” Will threatens, pacing between the tiny window which they’ve never been able to open, its corners lost in dust, and the armchair, which is as far into the flat as Merlin made it before being waylaid.

“It’s fine,” Merlin repeats, but without much heart; no one is listening to him. Gwen pushes him back down impatiently into the scratchy fabric of the chair when he tries to get up and escape. Freya had called her in as reinforcements when Merlin refused to give them any details, a dirty trick Merlin had complained was hardly necessary.

“Will,” Gwen says reprovingly. “That’s uncalled for.”

“It’s completely called for. I’ll break his fingers, I’ll trash his car; he won’t have a leg to ski on when I’m done with him—”

Freya is watching the spectacle from her perch on the worktop, with Baron below batting at her dangling feet. “You’re overreacting, William,” she points out. Will has detoured into a soliloquy on the merits of arson, and ignores her.

“I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding,” Gwen tries valiantly, and Freya snorts. 

“Sure, a misunderstanding where he forgot his girlfriend was still home when he invited Merlin over. They’ve been together since last October, if you believe—”

“—will _end_ him, I’m going to hang him up by his ankles and turn him inside out, until all his insides are on his outsides, and his outsides are his insides—”

“Will, _please_ ,” Gwen says, and turns back to Freya. “I’m sure if we asked Arthur he’d be able to explain everything.”

“I’m sure he already has five or six explanations all cooked up and ready to go,” says Freya, rolling her eyes. 

“That’s not fair; Arthur’s a good man, Lance knows—”

“—then I’ll start in on his fingers, he won’t be so cocky when he has acid burning through where his fingernails used to be, and I bet Anu will let me use the physics lab, we can run some volts through his balls, see how he takes _that_ —”

“Shut up, you bloodthirsty savage, you’re not helping anything.”

“—met Lance at a fundraiser, he says Arthur hides his decent side because—”

“He must be hiding it exceptionally deep, these days—”

“— _because_ , his father has control over—”

“I’ll dig it out of him, dig it out from wherever it’s hiding, and then I’m going to make him _eat_ it, shove it down his throat—”

Merlin rubs the pads of his fingers over the curve of the chair, picking at the little balls of fuzz coming off the fabric, glancing around without moving his head: Will is still pacing, fuming only slightly more quietly now, and Freya and Gwen are occupied with their nonsensical battle over Arthur’s supposed decency. He takes the opportunity and slips away without any of them noticing, closing the front door quietly behind him, heading for nowhere in particular.

He’s fine with it, really, he tells himself, shoving his hands as far into his pockets as they’ll go and kicking at a stray can he comes across. The can skitters away sideways. He doesn’t chase it the way he had as a kid to kick it all the way down the street until the neighbours hollered about the racket; he leaves it there instead and keeps walking. Sure, he’s disappointed, but that’s life. He’d taken a risk and it hadn’t worked out, and he’s glad he found out about it when he did, instead of after doing anything foolish.

Because it was foolish, he sees that now. Foolish to think Arthur might be looking for anything more than a quick shag, foolish to believe there might be something more to Arthur than arrogance and entitlement driving him to take whatever he wanted without worrying about the consequences. Merlin always falls into this same trap; the same idealistic pitfalls trip him up every time, and he thinks ruefully that he should have known better, will have to file this experience away and forget it until he finds someone else.

He wanders until the greyness of the cloudy day thickens past evening into twilight, and goes back to the flat, where Gwen has gone but Freya and Will meet him with sheepish looks and a goulash Freya had found the recipe for online. The meal is a little subdued, but Merlin’s already feeling better, and after he eats he boots up his computer and deletes all the skiing sites he’s ever bookmarked, and feels safely that he’s left it all well behind him.

*

“Where’s my fucking bag?”

“I don’t know, Freya, wherever you left it!” Merlin yells back, scooping cereal frantically into a clean tin left over from the tomato sauce he’d used the day before. “Maybe that damned cat ran off with it. Have you seen my keys?”

“In the bowl; you left them in the bag with the shopping,” Freya says, emerging from her room and pulling her hair back into a complicated looking knot. “I bet that fucker Will ran off with my new bag; I saw him looking at it yesterday. I will _end_ him. I bet we could sell him off for fertiliser. All the farmers at the market are looking for some; Will would probably be good for the radishes.”

“Sounds fun, best of luck, must go,” Merlin tells her, looking at his watch and grabbing his keys out of the communal bowl of loose ends they keep on the table. Gaius is going to have his head, he thinks mournfully, and pounds down the stairs and out the door. There’s someone sitting on the kerb outside the building, and Merlin’s three steps past him before something in his subconscious clicks. He whirls around in a double-take that almost takes him off his feet. “ _Arthur_?”

Arthur’s climbing to his feet, dusting off his trousers. He’s wearing short-sleeves, in deference to the unseasonably warm June day, but the shirt still looks starched to within an inch of its life. “Hey, Merlin.”

Merlin’s never been much of one to think about whether he is a fight or flight sort of guy, but when he finds himself back inside his building slamming the door shut in Arthur’s face, the answer seems pretty clear.

“Freya,” he says, barging through the door of their flat, “you have to help me.”

Freya has a mouthful of flax or bran or whatever it is she buys for breakfast, her cheeks slightly bulging from it, and cocks an eyebrow in question. 

“Arthur’s outside,” Merlin says, and the full horror descends on him. Arthur is outside his building. _Waiting_ for him. “You have to get rid of him.”

Freya swallows leisurely, and shrugs, which Merlin does not feel is an adequate response to the situation. “I’m late already,” he pleads. “Make him go away.”

“I’m not sure Arthur’s the type of man I can make do anything,” she says, shouldering her bag—Merlin notices it’s not the new one she’d bought, which Will had indeed stolen that morning after the strap of his had broken, scattering exams all over the floor—and walks out past Merlin. “Anyway, you keep telling me you’re a real grown-up now. Make him go away yourself.”

“This is terrible for your karma,” Merlin calls after her down the stairs in a last ditch effort to make her see sense. “You’ll be reborn as a cockroach in your next life!”

The door shutting is his only answer. Merlin curses, and goes to the window, craning to see the street below; he can’t tell if Arthur’s left or if he’s lying in wait out of the line of Merlin’s sight—

Merlin’s phone rings. 

Already dreading what he’ll find, Merlin pulls out his mobile and looks at the little screen. It’s a private number, but he’ll bet anything it’s Arthur again, taking stalking to whole new levels of creepiness. He doesn’t pick it up, lets it ring through, and when it stops he has a few seconds to breathe in relief before it starts ringing again. It’s been a month since the last time Arthur sent an email Merlin deleted without looking at; Merlin had thought he might finally be clear of it all, but apparently Arthur was just lying in wait.

The fourth time it starts ringing, Merlin leaves it on the worktop and sneaks quietly down the flight of stairs to the front door, peering out of the frosted window to see Arthur standing outside still, phone to his ear. 

“Fuck fuck buggering _shit_ ,” Merlin mutters, and creeps back up the stairs. Arthur calls twice more while Merlin stands awkwardly in the doorway, torn between hiding forever and the fact that if he misses a day Gaius will kill and mutilate his very soul with a single disappointed look, and then set him to all the worst tasks. If Merlin never sees another leech again, it will be too soon.

He looks at his watch and curses again, but the leech tank wins out. He’s fast down the stairs and faster out the door, darting out past a surprised Arthur and taking off down the street at a trot. Arthur’s more in shape than he is, though, and keeps up easily, much to Merlin’s dismay.

“Merlin, wait up—”

The Tube station is on the corner, one of the reasons they’d picked this flat, and Merlin puts his head down, quickening his pace.

Arthur’s jogging next to him, keeping up easily. “Listen, I just wanted to ask what I did wrong; I don’t—”

Merlin has his Oyster card out before they reach the turnstile, and for a moment he thinks he’s safe. Arthur destroys the illusion by vaulting over the barrier, and presses on. There are shouts behind them, but Arthur doesn’t bother looking back.

“Everything had been going well, I thought, and then I found that note and I really... I don’t understand what happened; all I want is a little explanation. I like you, Merlin, I’d like to fix whatever—”

Thank fuck, Merlin thinks, the train is timed perfectly, sliding its doors open as they approach. He puts on an extra burst of speed.

“Will you stop and _listen_ to me?” Arthur says, finally losing his temper, and grabs Merlin’s elbow, pulling him up short.

Merlin yanks away. “No,” he says, as coldly as possible. “I won’t stop and listen to your excuses; I’m not interested in any of them. I’m not interested in you. I have a train to catch.”

Arthur looks bewildered, and it costs him a second too long—Merlin’s able to slither through the closing doors of the car, leaving Arthur on the other side. Two uniformed gentlemen are flanking Arthur as the train starts moving, one of them with a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Merlin turns away, and doesn’t look back.

It’s Friday, and when Edgar—the half-timer Gaius hired a month before, when the shop had finished expanding into next door as well—invites Merlin out for a drink, Merlin goes along, secretly relieved. He’s half-afraid to go home, half-afraid that Arthur will still be sitting in front of his door, waiting; in comparison, going out and getting spectacularly pissed with Edgar, who mumbles and scratches at the pimples on his face and stares into space more frequently than Merlin thinks should be publically acceptable, seems like the better option.

They end up in a bar with too many lights and too many people, and Merlin orders too many drinks after turning off his phone, trying to forget the day and the expression on Arthur’s face as the train had pulled away from the platform. Edgar disappears somewhere over the course of the evening, pulled into the crush of dancers by a tiny brunette with blue eyes bigger than Merlin’s fist, and Merlin finds himself dancing with a stranger. The dance grows dirtier the drunker they get, and Merlin enjoys it, enjoys the feeling of uncomplicated and easy.

He goes home with the stranger—Tom, he’d told Merlin when Merlin asked—and the sex isn’t spectacular but it feels good, to know what to expect and what to give in return, to know neither of them is hiding or promising more than this one night to have a good time. They’re cordial in the morning, and Tom makes Merlin breakfast before Merlin leaves. He doesn’t offer his number, and Merlin doesn’t ask for it.

When Merlin walks in his own door, overly conscious that his clothes smell unmistakeably like all of the vices he’s been indulging in, Gwen is waiting for him.

“Where are Will and Freya?” Merlin asks, not bothering with hello. He’s familiar with the look on Gwen’s face; it’d be nice to have witnesses when she murders him. He doesn’t know who told her or how she found out, but somehow she _knows_.

“Out,” Gwen says, succinctly.

Merlin’s last hope fades. “Oh,” he says, and wonders who will go to his funeral, or if Gwen will ever be convicted. The worst of it is, he isn’t entirely sure she should be. 

“You’ll never guess who slept on my sofa last night and ruined my best pan this morning trying to make breakfast.”

“I’m going to say it probably wasn’t Lance,” Merlin ventures. Lance is a better cook than Gwen by far. 

She gives him a withering look. “There’s a new hire in Lance’s organisation, Leon. He and Lance went to the World Fund dinner last month.”

“Leon slept on your couch?”

“Don’t be facetious, Merlin. Of course not.”

“I’m not sure—”

“At this dinner, Leon introduced Lance to an acquaintance of his, one of the biggest donors to the project, a very well-respected man—”

In one of the sudden, blinding flashes of clarity that only come when they’ll hurt the most, Merlin knows exactly what she’s going to say next.

“—Arthur Pendragon.”

“Fancy that,” he says weakly. “Small world.” Another terrible thought strikes him. “This Leon—was he tall?”

Gwen furrows her brow. “Relatively.”

“Did he,” Merlin starts, and nearly loses his nerve. “Does he have a beard? Biceps to swoon for?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. Stop trying to change the subject,” Gwen orders, while Merlin is busy feeling horrified over exactly how small his world has become. “We’re talking about why Arthur Pendragon was drunk on my sofa last night.”

“Arthur was _drunk_?”

“Yes,” Gwen says, narrowing her eyes. “Like some other people I could name.”

“I’m an adult,” he says automatically, and she shoots him another look. 

“You hardly act like it.”

“If he was drunk,” Merlin says, deciding discretion is the far better part of valour—“why did you bring him to your house?”

Gwen stretches out her legs, crossing her ankles. Merlin wonders if he’s allowed to sit, or if part of his penance for poor decision-making is being made to stand and fidget. “He didn’t start drinking until after I brought him home.”

“Why did you—”

“Because Freya found him sitting in front of your door, waiting for you, and Gaius said you’d left hours before and Will was trying to figure out how to slit Arthur’s throat with a spoon and some twine.”

“Will’s an idiot,” Merlin offers feebly, and winces when Gwen raises an eloquent eyebrow. “Can’t I decide I don’t want to see someone?” he asks. “You’re always after me to make better choices, to stop seeing people who don’t _value_ me; why are you defending Arthur? He made it clear what he thinks of me. Repeatedly.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Gwen says, and her expression softens. “I know he hasn’t—he’s made mistakes, but I really think if you’d let him explain everything—”

“What, so he’s explained everything to _you_?”

Gwen’s voice turns sharp again. “Yes, just like he would have done to you a month ago, if you’d let him. I _know_ he’s tried contacting you.”

Merlin thinks of the emails he’d deleted without opening, the messages on his phone he’d never listened to, and decides he still wouldn’t change anything. “No,” he says. “Arthur had his chance twice. I’m not going to spend my life letting him explain mistakes he’s only going to keep making.”

“Merlin—”

“Gwen,” Merlin says, pleading now, a little, because she’s his oldest friend and he can’t throw her out of the flat that used to be theirs; “please, just let this be. I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you do,” she says, and sighs, waving his argument away before he can open his mouth to make it. “But fine, I’ll let you sort it out.”

Merlin wants to say that there’s nothing to sort, but he bites his tongue. Gwen’s already standing up, anyway, picking up her bag and slipping her sandals back onto her feet. “You’ll still come to the party?”

He gives her half a smile and opens his arms for the hug she’s clearly itching to give him. “Of course I will; you can count on me.”

She gives him a soft peck on the cheek, and he shows her out, shutting the door politely and waiting until he hears the door to the street close before throwing the deadbolt. He stands at the door for a moment, thinking about Arthur waiting for him, enduring the passing hours and Will’s threats; about Arthur following Gwen home and sinking into her sofa the way Merlin’s done a hundred times before.

He shakes his head, and goes to take another shower, because he can smell soap that isn’t his own on his skin and it makes him feel inexplicably grimy.

*


	5. Chapter 5

:::

_Three hits to the heart, son  
And it’s poetry in motion  
One could send you down the river  
Three’s a strange way to be delivered_

:::

 

Gwen’s always tried to downplay her birthday; she says every year that she doesn’t want gifts and has deleted the date from her Facebook page and taken every precaution because she says she’d rather not make a fuss about it, but the year after Merlin and Will and Freya had tried to throw her a surprise party and nearly burned down her building she’d admitted defeat. She still doesn’t technically have a birthday party—she calls it by various names, usually having to do with the solstice and the beginning of summer, and refuses gifts—but it serves the same basic purpose. Her theme this year is a fundraiser for Lance’s nonprofit, inviting all their biggest donors and potential partners, because the group is poised to tip over from _barely scraping by_ to _this could almost be a real job_ , and with one more push they could actually make it. Merlin goes partly because he loves Gwen, partly because he has no choice, and partly out of a morbid sense of curiosity, because he has a good idea what the guest list probably looks like. 

He lets Freya and Will go in first, bending down to fiddle with his shoes as they walk ahead into the garden. It’s mostly an absentminded gesture, but he’d be lying if he denied wanting to ensure a quick, painless exit if it turns out to be necessary. It turns out to be a pointless exercise, as Lance claps a hand on his shoulder the moment he steps through the arch. 

“Merlin! Good to see you.”

Merlin smiles weakly. He’s already caught sight of Arthur, surrounded by greenery and laughing with a group of Gwen’s friends, and he has to concentrate hard to keep his gaze from slipping off Lance’s face.

“How’ve you been, Lance?”

“Can’t complain,” Lance says, steering Merlin further into the party—though not, to Merlin’s relief, toward Arthur. The whole place is strung with fairy lights wound in among the plants and around the delicate pillars of the gazebo in the middle of the garden; the effect is soft, glittering, utterly lovely. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” He taps a broad-shouldered man who’s bent over the sound system adjusting something, and Merlin guesses before the man turns around who it is. “This is Leon, he’s working with me on the project. Leon, Merlin.”

Merlin’s hand extends automatically, and Leon takes it, giving it a firm shake. “Hello, Merlin.”

“Hi,” Merlin says, and Lance claps them both on the back as he’s called away to deal with the hors d’oeuvres, leaving them with the assurance that they’ll get along like a house on fire. They both watch him go—Merlin’s pretty sure that the problem with the food is that the catering staff has obviously been at the wine—and Leon clears his throat.

“It’s been a while,” he says, with a smile to show he means it peaceably.

“I suppose it has,” says Merlin. “I was—well, you probably know already.” 

Leon shrugs, a wry look on his face. “I hit Gwaine; once for you and once for Elena.” Merlin laughs.

“I shouldn’t think that was in line with the project vision. Aren’t you all supposed to be teaching by example or something?”

“I made sure no one saw,” Leon tells him. “Besides, the project’s mostly concerned with environmental non-violence; I think I can hit people still, if I really need to. I’m not sure—I didn’t read the fine print on the contract.”

“You’ve probably violated international law somehow,” Merlin says with a mostly involuntary smile. “Actually, tell me more about this new project; Lance has barely told me anything.”

“It isn’t really very exciting,” Leon demurs, but Merlin presses him until Leon relents and launches into a narrative about reclaiming green spaces in the city, with statistics and examples and hand gestures which come dangerously close to hitting Merlin in the face or stomach. Merlin follows it mostly, but he isn’t exactly paying rapt attention to Leon’s words: Arthur keeps shifting in and out of the corner of his vision, distracting him.

“The main problem is funding,” concludes Leon, and Merlin nods, assuming a sympathetic manner. “Right now we’re mostly putting on costumes for the benefit of small children.”

“Costumes?”

Leon looks sheepish. “We dress up as knights and put on plays in schools,” he says. “To raise awareness; it’s all very educational.”

“Really?” Merlin asks, delighted. “Who, just you and Lance? Do you have armour and swords and everything?”

“We have swords,” Leon confirms. “We started with cardboard and foil, but one of our donors gave us money for better ones, and for nice red capes instead of the ones Gwen sewed up for us out of curtains. Mostly it’s me and Lance, but Gwaine helps out sometimes and the same donor joins in when he’s in town. I saw him around earlier, actually; he’s a tallish bloke, blond, looks like he should be playing footie somewhere for screaming crowds...”

“Oh,” Merlin says, feeling curiously calm as the dread in his stomach solidifies and settles, bringing with it a refreshed sense of fatalism. “You mean Arthur?”

Leon nods. “You know him?”

“We’re acquainted,” Merlin says, his vowels a little clipped but not enough for Leon to notice—or if he does notice, he doesn’t say as much to Merlin.

“He’s a decent chap,” Leon says.

“So people keep telling me,” Merlin replies, before he thinks better of it. Leon’s giving him a quizzical look, so he adds: “I don’t know him very well; we’ve only met a few times.”

Leon’s face clears. “I’ll have to introduce you,” he says. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he’s very creative; he’s the one who came up with the idea of us being the Knights of the Round Table—” Merlin, with great effort, barely manages to keep himself from rolling his eyes, because _of course_ Arthur came up with that idea, and Merlin’s willing to bet money on who plays King Arthur, “—which goes over great with kids. You know, King Arthur coming back to save England and restore its former glory by planting trees, that sort of thing. We fight evil dragons that’ve been destroying nature and go on quests for seeds and things; it’s fun for us too, actually.” He gives Merlin a friendly smile. “We’d love to have a real Merlin if you ever have a spare afternoon. We could use a wizard to help save the trees or stop them from being cut. You could be our secret weapon against greenhouse gases.”

“Thanks,” Merlin says, cautious, because dressing up in wizard robes and risking being called Harry Potter doesn’t especially appeal to him. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think about what?” a voice says behind him, and Merlin turns to find Arthur, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, smiling and looking unbearably handsome in the twinkling light of the party. Arthur nods at Merlin, cordial, and gives Leon a manly half-hug backslapping sort of handshake. Merlin tucks his hands into his pockets and scuffs a toe through the grass.

“I’m trying to recruit Merlin here for our forays into amateur drama,” Leon explains, and Arthur looks at Merlin with a smile.

“You should join us,” he tells Merlin. “The knights could use a wizard to help them defeat the hordes of evil.”

“Why does everyone assume I have to be the wizard?” Merlin asks, feeling cross enough to be petulant. “Just because my name is the same doesn’t mean I have to play the old fart.”

“All the other roles are taken,” Arthur says. “Though I suppose you could be Guinevere.”

Merlin looks at him, but no, Arthur really doesn’t realise what he’s saying, hadn’t meant it in any other sense than the obvious. “Thanks,” he says, sardonic, “I think I’ll pass, though.”

“You’d make a good Merlin,” persists Arthur, Leon nodding along beside him. “We’d get you a proper hat and a wand and give you pointy ears—”

“That’s elves,” Leon points out gravely.

Arthur waves the interruption away. “—and the students would _love_ it; you’d be a huge hit.”

Wonderful, Merlin thinks. His future career as an amateur actor playing a weird Potter-Vulcan hybrid awaits. “I don’t think the real Merlin needed a wand,” he says. “And I have to find Freya for something; excuse me.”

It’s not polite but he doesn’t care; the whole thing feels orchestrated, and he’ll put up with it for a little while if he has to but he’d rather just throw them all into a bottomless pit and have done with it. He slips away, leaving Arthur and Leon to their talk of knights and dragons, and does not go find Freya, because Freya will only laugh at him and be no help at all.

“Will,” he says, when he finds Will lurking by the table with the drinks. It’s surprising, because Will isn’t a big drinker, until Merlin notices the bartender: a gorgeous woman who carries herself like a queen and who Merlin recognises as one of Gwen’s friends from uni. “Dream on,” Merlin advises with a significant look, and over Will’s blustering he says, “I’m leaving, are you ready to go?”

“Merlin,” Will says; “I am on the cusp of victory, here—”

“You’re on the cusp of a black eye.”

Will flips two fingers at him. “I am not. But even if I were, I am not lame enough to leave a party before everyone even arrives.” It’s true, Merlin realises; people are still coming in through the gate. The garden is hardly packed, but it feels too claustrophobic already. “Have you even said hello to Gwen?”

“No,” Merlin says, feeling guilty. “Fine, stay and get your nose broken. I’m going to find Gwen and then go home.”

“You are a sad excuse for a man,” Will tells him, but there’s no force behind the words; Merlin gives him a half-hearted punch in the shoulder and leaves him lurking by the bar.

“Merlin!” Gwen says when Merlin finds her. “I’m so glad you came!”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Merlin says, squashed into a hug.

“Yes, but you forget I know you,” says Gwen, letting him go to poke him in the chest with a finger. “Did Morgana fix you a drink yet? She’s made up something special just for tonight, and half the proceeds at the bar are going to Avalon House—”

Merlin wants to ask about that, because it’s seems like a safe topic and he doesn’t remember what sort of home it is that Morgana’s on the board of, but someone else—a co-worker, Merlin thinks, one of the other partners at the firm Gwen works at—comes up and distracts Gwen with a crown of flowers, and Merlin slips away instead.

Outside the garden, he takes a deep, clearing breath, turning his face up to the half moon beyond the glow of streetlights, and starts walking away from the noise of the party. He’s ambling, really, not in a hurry to be anywhere—certainly not in a hurry to go home to an empty flat to spend the evening with Baron lurking underfoot—and he hasn’t gone far when headlights come up slow from behind him. He looks around to find a sleek red car trailing him; an Aston Martin, maybe, he thinks, and he’s sure he already knows who’s driving it. Trust Arthur to have a James Bond car, even if it’s the wrong colour for 007.

Arthur rolls down the passenger side window. “Need a ride?”

“Not really,” Merlin says. “You realise this is becoming a really creepy habit of yours?”

“What, offering to give you a ride home out of the charity of my heart?”

“It’s not charity, it’s stalking.”

“That’s harsh.”

Merlin shrugs. “It’s true.”

“I think it’s going to rain,” Arthur tries, and Merlin looks back up at the sky. It’s hard to tell, in the dark, but he’s sure there isn’t a cloud in sight. He keeps walking.

“You might get mugged,” Arthur says after another block, still crawling along beside him.

“I doubt it,” says Merlin. “And even if someone tries to rob me, it’s not like I have anything valuable to steal.”

Arthur doesn’t answer that, but he doesn’t leave, either, cruising beside Merlin while Merlin tries to walk faster in a stupid attempt to leave Arthur behind. The car behind Arthur honks, then passes him; the driver shouts something uncomplimentary out the window.

Five more blocks pass, and Merlin’s legs are complaining at the pace by the time Arthur bursts out, “Will you just get in the car, please?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Merlin says, curling his lip derisively, but he stops walking. He doesn’t want to walk all the way home with Arthur driving beside him, the cars behind Arthur’s backing up and drawing attention to them, and it isn’t that far of a ride—maybe fifteen minutes. He can sit with Arthur for fifteen minutes; they don’t even have to talk.

“ _Finally_ ,” Arthur says when Merlin opens the door and slides in, and steps on the accelerator.

The car growls quietly to itself as they pick up speed, zipping down the street, and Merlin doesn’t say a word, stubbornly looking out the window with his lips pressed together, trying not to appreciate the creamy leather of the interior.

They sit like that for five minutes which stretch on and on while Merlin watches the buildings slide past and Arthur taps his fingers on the steering wheel, honking every so often at cars which don’t automatically leap out of his way. Impatience must be a congenital trait of Arthur’s, Merlin thinks, and pretends he isn’t watching Arthur. Arthur looks tired. It isn’t anything obvious, he doesn’t have dark bags under his eyes, but there’s a downward tilt to his mouth and a brittleness in his shoulders that betrays him. Merlin wonders why.

It’s an impulse, a terrible one, but he doesn’t quite have the self-control to keep it from bursting out. “Where’s Sophia?” He tries to make it casual, nonchalant, but it falls from his mouth full of blunt inelegance, with tattered edges Merlin hopes like hell Arthur can’t hear.

Arthur starts, and squeezes his hands tighter around the wheel, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Wherever she usually is when she isn’t gathering up innocent virgins for a bloody sacrifice; why should I know where she is?” He glances over at Merlin. “And how the hell do you know her?”

“Well, she is your girlfriend,” Merlin says. God, he’s going to be mean, he can feel it; he’ll probably slide through the barrier into petty nastiness, but he doesn’t want to stop. “I assume you know where your girlfriend is. Or are you too busy pulling men for one-night stands?”

He half expects Arthur to come to a screeching halt, throwing the wheel over to get them off the road before throwing Merlin out of the car, but Arthur doesn’t move except to signal and draw the car smoothly around a turn: precise, perfectly controlled. 

“What?” His voice is a contrast to the flawless control in his movements. It grates and grows louder through the word, turning one syllable into several until it ends in a shout.

Merlin shrugs, and tries to think of anything else to say. He hadn’t really thought about what to follow with; hadn’t expected to need to say much else. 

“What,” Arthur repeats, shifting with special vehemence, and now Merlin can pick up on his growing agitation; “what would ever make you believe she was my _girlfriend_?”

“Well, she was in your house,” Merlin points out. He doesn’t add that she’d seemed to fit the house, the cold grandeur of it, in a way Merlin knows he’d never be able to. “I assumed that was a pretty good clue.”

Arthur makes an indistinct noise, working himself toward luminous anger. Merlin curls his fingers around his seatbelt, and glares at the dashboard.

“I can’t believe you,” Arthur says. The control is fading now, fraying; he shoves his foot down on the pedals and jerks the car around a family crossing the street. “I can’t believe anyone would ever listen to her, she’s been lying since the day she started breathing—”

“It’s not as if you’ve done very well proving her otherwise,” Merlin interrupts, sharp.

“What?” Arthur says again. “What _haven’t_ I done to prove her wrong? But you, no, you know everything; you won’t even _listen_ to me when I try to—”

“You mean when you show up at my house or call my phone a hundred times like a lunatic? Or do you mean when you come on to me and then back off like a scared little boy who’s done something wrong; Jesus,” Merlin says. “I might get whiplash if you keep it up. I don’t even _know_ you; for all I know you could very well spend your weekends pulling secret one night stands and your weeks pretending nothing ever happened.”

“I would _never_ ,” Arthur says vehemently. “I would never do something that foul. If you knew _anything_ —”

“But I don’t,” Merlin says, because it’s true. “I don’t know the first thing, about you, Arthur. And I’m not sure I even want to.”

Arthur’s pale now, his knuckles white around the wheel as he pulls the car over. “Get out, then,” he says, staring straight ahead. “If you have so low an opinion of me, maybe you’re better off walking.”

“Maybe I am,” Merlin snaps, fumbling with the seatbelt—the damn thing is stuck fast, and it gets tangled around his arm while he tries to tug free—and throws the door open. He slams it shut as hard as he can, and Arthur pulls away fast into traffic; if Merlin looks around for a stone to throw, there’s no one around to prove it.

He walks the rest of the way home warm with righteous fury, hot all over with anger. His head feels distanced from his body, buzzing too full of sensations to leave room for thought, and when he digs through his pockets for his keys, he discovers that his fingers are trembling. When Baron leaps at him from out of the darkness of the flat, Merlin bats her away hard and makes for his room without turning on any lights, banging the door closed behind him before collapsing on his bed and staring at the ceiling well past the time Freya comes home, until the gradual lightening of the shadows turns into a grey morning and he falls asleep from pure exhaustion.

He sleeps fretfully, tossed into a confusion filled with sounds and colours and sense memories, and when he wakes in the afternoon he feels groggier than he did before dreaming. The froth he’d worked himself into over how much of a _colossal prick_ Arthur is has subsided, and Merlin rolls over to bury his face in a pillow because now the gut-punched look Arthur had worn at the Tube station is worming its way into Merlin’s mind, mixing with the memory of the tension of Arthur’s fingers in the car. This would all be much easier, Merlin thinks, if he hadn’t thought that Arthur might have been a decent man, secretly funny and laid back and thoughtful, and all this thinking is only making Merlin feel more uncomfortable and sort of guilty, as if he’d been a little bit of a bastard, too. 

He calls Gwen in the morning once the clock crawls along to a reasonable hour, groping for his mobile without moving from his prone position. He doesn’t really want to discuss Arthur, but he’ll just keep making himself sick over things if he doesn’t talk to someone, and she’s the first name to pop into his head.

“Merlin,” Gwen says when she answers. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m not,” Merlin says, which is not the wittiest of rebuttals but it’ll have to do.

“I don’t understand,” Gwen starts, but all of a sudden the prospect of hashing this over with anyone makes his stomach give a wrenching roll; he doesn’t want to talk about it, about what he’s done or Arthur’s done, doesn’t want to think about Arthur’s face illuminated by streetlight and the dials on his dash. He hangs up on Gwen, which only makes him feel sicker, though he sends her an apology text later, when he’s finally dragged himself out of bed. 

Gwen never texts back, but he ignores it all for a few days, because this too will pass, he’s confident; it’ll be wretched for a little while and then they can all go back to being normal, with no secrets or meddling around in each other’s business and no Arthur to make things go all muddled. Or so Merlin hopes; maybe the power of positive thinking will save him as it never has in the past. But Gwen gives him wounded, betrayed looks when he sees her out with Lance, and on Wednesday when she comes into the shop, she doesn’t speak to him, and all Merlin can think is that Gwen’s always been a good judge of character. And later, when Edgar—who’s been flirting like a champion all week—finally says something, and Merlin can’t even work up the energy to let him down properly, when he’s close to saying _yes_ , dear God, because he’s too busy thinking about how maybe Arthur was right, and Gwen was right, and maybe Arthur deserves another chance after all, Merlin decides to call his own bluff, as much as the thought makes him want to shoot himself in the foot.

The email he sends is terse, and _not_ an apology. He still doesn’t think he owes Arthur an apology for anything he said, not really. He’s only uncomfortable with the _way_ he said things, maybe, and he doesn’t like that Arthur didn’t take it well. Arthur doesn’t write back, though, and that’s not Merlin’s fault, which he makes the mistake of trying to explain to Gwen when she finally deigns to speak to him a week later.

“You really sent him an email?”

“Yes, Gwen,” Merlin says, ensconced in Gwen’s sofa with half a pint of ice cream to hand. “I really, truly did, and if you need proof I can show you my email to prove it.”

Gwen’s narrows her eyes and stalks off out of Merlin’s line of sight. He thinks about following her, but he’s comfortable enough that dislodging the ice cream where it’s balanced on his chest and unfolding his legs is too much effort to bother with. He settles further into the cushions, instead, and focuses on the urgent task of savouring the chocolates swirls in the ice cream before it all melts and drips everywhere. 

Gwen’s gone for long enough that Merlin starts to wonder if she’s actually left to track down Arthur himself, and he’s almost to the point of leaving the ice cream nest he’s made to go make sure she isn’t doing irreparable damage to anything or anyone when she comes back and points a terribly alarming finger at him.

“Sunday lunch,” she says. “Eleven-thirty. You’re buying.”

“Um?” Merlin offers, because he doesn’t really see how taking Gwen out to lunch will help anything—

“Arthur will be there or I will crush his balls like grapes,” Gwen says, and adds—completely unnecessarily—“just like I’ll crush yours if you decide you have better things to do than be there. You don’t. You will go and sort things out between yourselves and enjoy it, or so heaven help me, I will take you both out to sea and leave you there to drown so that none of us has to deal with the two of you moping around anymore. Are we clear?”

“I don’t,” Merlin begins, surprised and a tiny bit terrified at this new side of Gwen, but Gwen squints at him, her hands on her hips, and he nods instead of finishing the sentence, bobbing his head up and down obediently. “Crystal clear, yes ma’am.”

“Good,” Gwen says, and grins, back to her usual, dimpled, unthreatening self. The sight does not do much to reassure Merlin. “I think this is going to go _splendidly_.”

*

Merlin ends up at the café on Sunday half from his own free will and half because Gwen leaves three increasingly threatening messages on his phone between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, and Merlin isn’t an idiot. He doesn’t go inside, though; lingers outside the door and pretends to examine the landscaping until someone clears their throat behind him and he turns to see Arthur, dressed down in short sleeves and designer sunglasses and looking as uncomfortable as Merlin feels.

“Hi,” Merlin offers, after they stand there staring for long enough to attract curious glances from passersby.

Arthur fiddles with his watch—large, gold, obnoxiously expensive-looking. “Hey. I suppose we should—” He jerks his head toward the door of the café. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin says, because he’d been thinking while he lurked in front of the flowers. “You think Gwen is in there somewhere, waiting to see if we actually go in together?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Arthur says, with the slightest twitch of a grin. “She was pretty adamant on the phone.”

“Try imagining it in person,” Merlin says, and Arthur winces in sympathy. “I wouldn’t have put it past her to bug the place, either. Her brother is some kind of tech guy; he could do it.”

Arthur looks at the café again, then back at Merlin. “She’ll come after us both if we skip, though.”

“We don’t have to skip,” Merlin says, shrugging. “We’ll just... take the conversation elsewhere. I’m not very hungry, anyway.”

Arthur’s grin grows stronger. “I like the way you think, Emrys,” he says, and makes a ridiculous grand gesture with his arm, motioning down the street. “Shall we?”

They stroll away, slower than Merlin usually walks, almost ambling along, and it feels like the city has slowed with them in honour of the weekend or the day or both, the air bright and beautiful and full of flowers in the warm caress of summer. They find a park and then a bench shaded by a tree with young leaves still caught in their first electric green, not yet steadied into maturity, and without speaking they both sit, easing down onto the metal of the bench and leaning back to stretch their legs out. Arthur hooks his elbows over the back of the bench, rolling his head back, and Merlin picks at a loose thread on his trousers. 

“So,” Arthur starts. Merlin glances at him but can’t tell what he’s thinking; the sunglasses are still hiding his eyes and his expression. “How’ve you been, Merlin?”

“Fine,” Merlin says. It might be a blatant lie but Arthur doesn’t have to know that. “How is, you know, racing and everything?”

“Harder when there’s no snow.” Arthur tilts his head further up, as if he’s glaring at the sun itself. “But going well.” 

“Good. That’s good.”

“No fresh attacks by feathered lunatics?”

That surprises a laugh out of Merlin. “Uh, no,” he says. “Not recently.” 

Arthur smiles, but he’s quiet after that, and Merlin busies himself by stealing looks at him when he thinks Arthur isn’t looking. He should bring up what they’re supposed to be talking about, this whole stupid thing with them and Sophia and Merlin being in knots over the expression on Arthur’s face when he doesn’t even know what Arthur really _thinks_...

It would have been easier to do if they had gone into the café and Gwen had been there to supervise, he decides. Stilted and awkward, maybe, but at least there would have been someone else there making him ask the hard questions. He knows, though, that avoiding it now won’t appease Gwen, and he won’t be able to lie about it: Gwen’s always had a supernatural ability to tell when Merlin’s lying, though Will says it’s just because Merlin’s a terrible liar.

Merlin sighs, sends a plea to the universe for luck, and says: “So, I’m confused.”

Arthur cocks one eyebrow up, and doesn’t move. “That doesn’t seem to be all that unusual for you.”

“Hah, hah.” Merlin lets his lips curl into what Freya’s assured him is his least attractive face. “With you, I mean. Normally I am perfectly fine.”

“Really,” Arthur says, sounding thoughtful. “Because I could have sworn that being attacked by feathered madmen while on a _fake smoking break_ would—”

“I’m serious, Arthur,” Merlin interrupts, half-turning on the bench. Arthur’s taken his arms down now, to cross them in front of his chest. “You run me over, invite me over to your house, and then you disappear. You take me out on what I think might be a date, and then strange women in your house claim to be your girlfriend and pin you as the worst kind of arsehole, going through one night stands like they’re going out of style. I might be just a lowly peasant in your eyes, but forgive me for being just the _slightest_ bit confused, okay?”

Arthur sits quiet, watching people pass by them while Merlin watches him, measuring, waiting for Arthur to give something—anything—away.

“Look,” Merlin says, when Arthur offers nothing. “I’m not asking for soul-baring histrionics or anything; this isn’t Jeremy Kyle. But you have to give me something, Arthur. You can’t just stalk me and show up on my doorstep or at my friends’ parties and expect me to fall into your arms.” He doesn’t even know if that’s what Arthur wants—he’s assuming, based on the evidence, but the only evidence he has is leaky, full of holes and contradictions and darknesses Merlin can’t possibly see through on his own.

Arthur’s face is smooth behind his glasses; his shoulders military-rigid. “I have tried multiple times to offer you a proper explanation—”

“That’s shit and you know it,” Merlin says. Something that might be his conscience twinges a warning, but it’s only half a lie, after all. “For all I know you were just looking to open the door back up on what you thought could be an easy lay.” He doesn’t really believe that—it doesn’t add up, not with the Arthur he’d seen barefoot in the kitchen, looking stunned and a little amazed at Merlin, his breath and lips hot and wet and far too close for artifice; not with the Arthur he’d been to lunch with, all cautious flirtation and earnest humour. But it opens a crack in Arthur’s stiffness, finally forces emotion out of him, and that’s what Merlin wants to see: Arthur _feeling_ something right now, because otherwise Merlin doesn’t know if he’s only wasting his time.

“It wasn’t like that—none of it was like that.” Arthur’s angry. Merlin can see it now, hear it wound tight around Arthur’s words like a spring, and he pushes further.

“So tell me what it _was_ like,” he says. “Tell me what to think, because right now there’s nothing to keep me here.”

Arthur breathes out something that isn’t quite a sigh: a long, quiet breath. He’s playing with the clasp on his watch again, and Merlin waits.

“Fine,” Arthur says, at last. Merlin barely keeps from startling. “Look. Bringing you home, that day on the mountain—it wasn’t premeditated.” He shrugs. “You were fuming and bloody-minded and attractive, and—”

“And you’d just won another shiny medal and felt the world owed you a bit of fun?”

Arthur lowers his head at last to look more directly at Merlin, and by the tilt of his eyebrows Merlin figures he’s probably glaring beneath the sunglasses. “Do you want the explanation or not?” Arthur demands. Merlin folds his lips together, raising his own eyebrows in return, and subsides.

Arthur eases back into a more comfortable-looking position without relaxing. “It felt all wrong. You’re really not like anyone else, you know?” Merlin presses his lips harder together, fighting the urge to say something cutting about snowflakes. “I couldn’t decide what I wanted,” Arthur continues. “I wanted to kiss you, but I knew if I let it go further, we’d end up in bed and you’d be no better than any of the other flings I’ve had—done and gone in days.”

Merlin can’t contain the outraged noise that escapes him. “This is the worst explanation ever, you know.”

Arthur crooks a smile at him. “I never claimed it was a good one. It’s the true one.” Merlin huffs. 

“I’m not all that keen on being used as an experiment.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Arthur argues. Now that he’s begun moving, it’s as if he can’t stop—he leans forward to prop his elbows on his knees, his hands demonstrating his words in short, staccato movements. “I’m comfortable with who I am; I’d never have kissed you if I wasn’t. It just didn’t feel right, and then things didn’t go as planned; you were angry and then I left, and I mostly forgot you existed.”

“You what?” Merlin says, his voice climbing to an entirely unattractive register. “It’s official: this is the very worst explanation I’ve ever heard. I wish I’d never asked.”

“Shut up,” Arthur says. His voice is comfortable—easy, controlled—and Merlin would give him hell for all of it except that there’s still a tension not quite concealed by the big glasses and Arthur’s careful posture, which makes Merlin wonder if maybe... “I took a picture of the email you wrote on my arm and put it in my phone, and when I found it again I emailed you, and everything was fine until Sophia interfered.”

“Yes,” Merlin says. “Sophia. What the hell was she even doing in your house?”

Arthur shrugs again. “I dated her. _Years_ ago,” he adds when he sees Merlin’s expression, adjusting his glasses with a gesture that conveys how supremely irritated he is to have to clarify that. “We were still in the junior leagues.”

“Hmm,” Merlin says, trying to inject the sound with as much disapproval as he can, but he lets Arthur continue.

“I broke it off,” Arthur explains. “She didn’t like that. She thought she owned part of me, like I was given to her as a present and I should obey everything she said. So she shows up at my competitions and once in a while finds a way past the alarm system and lurks in my house until Geoffrey finds her and throws her out.”

“Right,” Merlin says, gone past scepticism into pure disbelief and disappointment. “And I’m suppose to believe she’s been doing that for what, four or five _years_?”

“More like six or seven.”

Merlin stares, because the way Arthur says that, so matter-of-fact, makes the utter absurdity of it all seem almost... real.

“But you must have filed a restraining order, at least. You can’t tell me the police don’t pay attention to you, with where you live and all.”

“Her family has close ties with my father.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Arthur says, crisp, not even looking at Merlin anymore, and it’s clear that particular thread of the conversation is very definitely over.

Merlin persists anyway. “Surely he’d understand, though, this woman is invading your _home_ ; you’re completely within your rights to toss her out the window.”

“You haven’t met my father,” Arthur replies. His voice is light, but Merlin can feel something cold and dangerous underneath, a quiet threat. Merlin backs off, eases down from the mountain of questions bursting to be asked—now is not the time for any of them. Later, he promises himself. He’ll figure out that mystery later.

“I can’t believe you even considered dating her,” he grumbles, playing for humour, and he can feel the tension seep out of the air between them.

“She was very pretty,” Arthur points out, defensive, and Merlin shakes his head.

“You could have done better.”

“Than a creepy possessive stalker? I’m flattered.”

Merlin slouches back against the bench. “How could you have missed that, really? I thought you were supposed to be perfect.”

Arthur flicks his ear. “Even the best of us make regrettable decisions, _Mer_ lin.”

“Yes,” Merlin agrees, feeling mischievous. “I saw the karaoke video on YouTube.”

“Oh, Christ,” Arthur says, laughing. “If I could find a way to hack into Lindsey’s account and take that horrible thing down, I would.”

“But you’re forgetting the beauty of the internet. Things live on forever.”

“You don’t have to sound so smug about it. I bet there are videos of you doing equally shameful things, too.”

“Absolutely not,” Merlin assures Arthur. “Not one little embarrassing thing, and if Freya ever offers to show you the pictures she stole of Will’s nineteenth birthday, I want you to know in advance that they are all fakes.”

“Of course,” Arthur agrees, laughing again. His sunglasses have slid down his nose, and Merlin resists the urge to push them back up or take them off so that he can see Arthur’s eyes. 

“I suppose I should offer a better apology myself,” Merlin says, because it’s easy now to say the words, so much easier than he’d thought before. “I should have let you explain everything earlier. I shouldn’t have assumed things without knowing all the facts.”

“You should have. Though I should have done a better job at explaining, too.”

Merlin puts out a hand. “Think we could have a fresh start?”

Arthur puts his hand in Merlin’s. “Think so, yeah.”

Merlin doesn’t mean to linger after the shake, but at first he isn’t quite ready to let go, and then he’s distracted by the curves and planes of Arthur’s hand. Arthur doesn’t move to let go, either, until they both realise they’ve been holding hands far longer than a simple handshake would require. Merlin clears his throat.

“Er...”

Arthur tries to snatch his hand back, looking as if he’s about to make some self-deprecating joke, but Merlin doesn’t want that. He has Arthur’s hand in his, and he wants to keep it there. He tightens his grip. Arthur tugs a bit, but he doesn’t pull anywhere near hard enough to break free, and Merlin throws the last of his caution to the wind.

“Weren’t we supposed to have lunch?”

There’s a terrible moment where Arthur only stares at him, but then a slow smile creeps out to dimple Arthur’s cheeks. “I know a place,” he says, standing up and tugging Merlin after him. “Come on.”

The place Arthur knows turns out to be a dingy hole in the wall filled with smoke and the thick, lascivious smell of roasting meat and a hundred people in dirty aprons all yelling at each other in languages Merlin’s sure isn’t English. There are three tiny tables covered with bright cloths crammed into the space and not a single chair. Everyone seems to know Arthur: they greet him with shouts and kisses to the cheek and everyone pats Merlin on the back, and one wizened old woman emerges from the back to latch onto Merlin’s elbow, smoothing his forearm with a cool, gnarled hand and ordering the cook—cooks? Merlin can’t tell how many people are cooking and how many are just participating in this joyfully exuberant corner of humanity—to wrap up this or that for him, special. The three young women gossiping behind the till refuse payment, backed up by everyone around them, and Merlin, once he extricates himself from the claws of the matriarch, beats a hasty retreat after Arthur. 

“Friends of yours?” he asks, once he’s sufficiently recovered.

Arthur’s already digging through his bag. “Stumbled in there one day by accident a few years ago; it’s some of the best food you’ll ever have, I swear.”

Merlin eyes his bag doubtfully. It’s a cheap plastic one, the sort that always breaks when he uses them to line the bin in his room, and he has no idea what they put inside it. “Really?”

“Excellent, pupusas!” Arthur says, pulling a loosely-wrapped lump of foil out of his own bag. “It’s not the calmest of places,” he admits to Merlin. “But I suppose that’s what happens when the best kebab-maker in London marries a high-strung Salvadorian cook who brings his entire family over with him. They’re straight out of a soap opera, I swear.”

“The best kebabs in London?” Merlin asks, because he has his doubts. Arthur nods at Merlin’s bag.

“You should have one in there,” Arthur says, unwrapping his foil lump to expose a pale circle of stuffed dough. “Try it.”

It’s certainly an excellent kebab, made exactly right, but Merlin purses his lips and furrows his brow over it, just to see Arthur work himself into a froth expounding on the manifold qualities of these particular kebabs as opposed to any others. They eat on the move, Merlin laughing when Arthur spills sauce down the front of his shirt and curses the air around them blue.

“It’s just a shirt,” Merlin says, pressing the sad remains of a paper napkin to the spot in an effort to clean it. He’s fairly sure he’s only making the stain worse, but he can feel Arthur moving under his hand—feel his heartbeat and the regular rhythm of his breath—and that’s a benefit which outweighs all the costs.

“Just a shirt, he says,” Arthur moans. “Just a shirt! It’s the _image_ , Merlin. I can’t go around looking stained, it would be awful.”

“It’s a reflection of your virtue, I understand. The paparazzi must be salivating in the bushes,” Merlin agrees solemnly before the laughter he’s been suppressing bubbles its way to the surface. Arthur wrestles the napkin away from him and tries to stuff it in his mouth, and they end up tangled close together, teetering off balance while they both giggle helplessly, Merlin’s arm wrapped tight around Arthur as he fights to stay upright while Arthur presses all along his side.

They never quite separate after that; Arthur stays close enough that some part of them is always touching. Their elbows knock together when Merlin hands over his container of rice and beans for Arthur to eat, and Arthur lingers close once they’ve finished and have nothing to carry, his knuckles brushing against Merlin’s with just the slightest hint of intent. The shadows are growing longer, drawing the afternoon down into a long summer evening, when Merlin finally decides _fuck it_ and grabs Arthur’s hand the next time it touches his own, wrapping his fingers firmly around Arthur’s own. He looks over, but Arthur is absorbed in his own narrative about mutant ducks; the only clue he’s realised what Merlin’s done comes when his fingers twist to curl between Merlin’s own.

Somehow, they end up in Trafalgar, and Arthur insists on pulling Merlin up to sit by the lions, where they kick their heels and watch tourists take pictures of each other in the gathering dusk. Merlin still has Arthur’s hand in his, and he’s considering the merits of daring to put his head on Arthur’s shoulder, because he’s tired from the walking and the sun and the effort it takes for him to believe that Arthur is really next to him, that it’s really Arthur’s hand in his.

Before he can decide, there’s a buzzing noise and Arthur’s digging through his own pockets, searching.

“Morgana,” he says when he finally fumbles his phone up to his ear, giving Merlin an apologetic look. “What do you want?”

Arthur’s thumb is rubbing over Merlin’s knuckles absently, and Merlin gives in to impulse and leans against Arthur, dropping his head to rest it on Arthur’s shoulder, and smiles to himself when Arthur doesn’t shrug him off. 

“Yes,” Arthur is saying. “Yes. I’m not an _idiot_ , Morgana, I—yes. No, absolutely not. Fine.” He hangs up without a goodbye and shoves his phone back into the pocket of his trousers before leaning his own head down against Merlin’s, his breath ruffling Merlin’s hair and his nose pressing into Merlin’s skull. It can’t be comfortable to have his face buried in Merlin’s hair, but Arthur isn’t moving and Merlin isn’t complaining, just closes his eyes and lets his smile spread wider.

“Mmphrgh,” Arthur says at last, and Merlin opens his eyes again, pulling away to look at him.

“We have terrible timing,” says Arthur, knocking their shoulders together and not quite meeting Merlin’s eyes.

Merlin stiffens, just a little bit. “Why do you say that?”

Arthur scrubs his free hand over his face. “I’m supposed to go to France tomorrow morning to spend three weeks with my sister.”

“Oh.” They do, in fact, have terrible timing, Merlin thinks, and this, right here: this is why Freya will never convince him the universe doesn’t hate him. 

“Three weeks of listening to her complain about everything under the sun and avoiding fatal wounds,” Arthur says, glum, and Merlin wonders if the tightening of his grip is intentional.

“Fatal wounds? Is your sister that dangerous?”

Arthur looks grim. “Her dog.” Merlin feels a little bubble of delight swell up in his chest.

“You mean,” he begins delicately. “Morgana has a dog? Might this dog be, possibly, a very small one?”

Arthur slants a glare at him. “It’s vicious.”

“I’m sure it is,” Merlin says soothingly. “I’m sure it has very sharp teeth and great big claws and weighs all of five pounds with its fur wet.”

“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur says, but Merlin can tell his heart isn’t in it. “I want to say—”

“That someday you’ll let me document your encounters with tiny creatures with a camera so I can become an internet celebrity?”

“ _No_.” Arthur twists away to face Merlin fully, and the soberness in his face derails Merlin entirely. “Merlin, I—this isn’t something I normally do.”

“What, run away just as you pull me in?” Merlin asks, the words too harsh, though he doesn’t mean them that way. Arthur’s face goes pinched.

“I meant _you_ ; you’re something entirely new for me. I’m saying—I might fuck up, that’s all.” Arthur throws the words out like a challenge, his shoulders hunched, and all of Merlin’s hostility drains away in a rush. It’s cost Arthur something to say that, and Merlin’s man enough to realise that and pay it back.

“Me too,” he says. “That’s sort of how it’s supposed to go, you know. With things like this. You fuck up and I fuck up and somehow we keep muddling on.”

“I suppose,” Arthur says, looking doubtful, and Merlin leans forward on impulse to plant a kiss on his lips.

Half of him expects the crowds to burst into spontaneous applause, though in retrospect he knows it’s foolish: it wasn’t much more than a peck, over in a blink, and no one’s paying attention to the two of them, anyway. But Arthur’s looking at him with wide eyes, and that’s all the approval Merlin needs.

They’re leaving in opposite directions, but Arthur walks Merlin to his Tube stop, swiping through with his Oyster card before Merlin can protest and leading Merlin down to the proper train. “It’s only three weeks,” Arthur says when they can hear the train coming closer.

“Not so long,” Merlin replies, trying not to think of how long it really is. “Don’t let the tiny dog bite you anywhere important.”

Arthur’s response is to wrap his arms around Merlin while the train rushes out at them and kiss him again, fierce and far stronger than Merlin’s kiss had been. Merlin pushes back into the kiss, fisting his hands into the fabric of Arthur’s shirt over his shoulders, letting this be his reward for all the uncertainty, the months of misplaced frustration, while the wind whips at his shirt and hair.

There’s a hiss from the hydraulics behind him as the doors open, and Merlin pulls away regretfully. “You have my email,” he says. “Use it.”

Arthur tries a smile. “I promise.”

Merlin nearly makes a fool of himself tripping onto the train, forgetting to mind the gap. “I’ll be here when you get back,” he says, and presses close to the window to watch while the train rumbles and pulls away.

Fuck, he hates leaving Arthur behind on platforms, he thinks, and rests his head against the sticky metal of one of the handrails when he loses sight of Arthur, trying desperately to convince himself that three more weeks after waiting for months isn’t so very long after all.

*

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Tuesday, 28 June at 6:19 PM  
Subject: No Subject

yahoo? seriuosly, merlin, who even uses yahoo anymore? hopeless.

arrived finally after three hours in airport. apparently noone now escapes caviety searches lights in teh face dark rooms interrogation techniques etc. morgana horrifying as usual. raining. if all it does is raing here i dont see why i had to come all the way out when i could have just been rained on at home.

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Tuesday, 28 June at 8:52 PM  
Subject: Re: No Subject

Yahoo works just fine but only losers don’t put a subject in their emails. you're just lucky I’m bored enough to check even the sad loser emails. 

So not even your super special global business class pass for rich arses gets you out of all that? (don’t lie I know you must have one.) how sad and terrible for you, to be set aside with all the peasants. Look at all these tears I am crying for you. Great, big, salty tears of sadness.

You go to France and all you can say is that it’s raining? there's something wrong with you, mate.

Merlin

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Tuesday, 28 June at 8:59 PM  
Subject: Re: Re: No Subject

what do you want t oknow? provence is boring.

::

“Freya,” Merlin says, as casually as possible while he links his fingers together over his stomach, gazing at the ceiling stain above their telly, which has grown since he last studied it from this particular angle on their floor. “Have you ever been to France?”

Freya glances down at him over the top of her glasses before turning back to the lurid yellow volume of Hafiz she’s reading. “We all went in January,” she points out, turning a page and shifting until her feet are propped on the arm of the chair

“Not what I meant,” Merlin says, rolling onto his stomach and propping his elbows up beneath him. “I mean _France_ —Paris or Provence or wherever.”

“God,” Freya sighs, laying the book over her face. “You’re going to be absolutely insufferable until he comes back, aren’t you?”

“What?” Merlin sputters. “Who?”

Freya pulls Hafiz down far enough to give him an exasperated look. “I’m not an idiot. Gwen and I do talk, you know.”

“Oh,” Merlin says. “I’ll just, um...” He rolls back over, retreating to the safety of BBC Four, pretending to ignore that Freya is laughing quietly behind him.

::

 

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 9:34 PM  
Subject: I... don’t know what to put here

I got the package you sent. Gwen says thank you for the cheeses.

You could have at least warned me, so I didn’t open it up in front of everyone. You’re lucky I’m faster than both my flatmates. Lost the wrapping paper and the tiny Eiffel tower to the cat but nothing more important at least. Thanks for the cards -- paintings? they look like tiny paintings. I’m glad there’s someone over there who appreciates the french countryside when they’re in it.

Merlin

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 10:17 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

glad it made it to you, i was worried abotu things going missing. did everything make it?

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 10:23 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

Well, I don’t know what you put in it, but I think so? Doesn’t look like anything’s missing.   
The chocolates are delicious, by the way.

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 10:25 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

you ate the chocolates already?! merlin, those are very special FRENCH CHOCOLATES. they are meant to be SHARED.

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 10:39 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

How was I supposed to know? It’s not like I speak french. though now that I googled the translation it explains a few things.

So you’re sending yourself presents? I assume you think you’re the one I’d share them with, wouldn’t even consider I might share them with anyone else. 

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 11:02 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

their your chocolates. do whatever you wnat with tem.

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Wednesday, 6 July at 11:08 PM  
Subject: Re: I... don’t know what to put here

Jesus, you really are emotionally stunted. of course I didn’t share them, who is there to share them with? Everyone here is involved or definitely not my type. I only ate a few; saving the rest.

Merlin

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Thursday, 7 July at 12:43 AM  
Subject: PROOF

Files attached:   
DSCN0491.jpg  
DSCN0492.jpg  
DSCN0494.jpg  
DSCN0497.jpg

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Thursday, 7 July at 6:29 AM  
Subject: Re: PROOF

i believed you! someday we will both be arrested if the police ever find those photos. idiot.

they were...inspiring, though. 

::

“Merlin, I’m glad you’re here. I need to speak to you.”

Merlin gives Will a curious look; he’d come by to bring Will take-away on his lunch break while Will worked tutoring a few of his brighter students in unofficial summer classes, and while the students seem to be working hard, Will looks grim. “What’s the matter?”

“Not here,” Will says, ushering Merlin out of the classroom and closing the door behind them. He has a newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Will, seriously, what’s wrong?” 

Will looks about furtively, then hands Merlin the paper, which is folded back a few pages. “What,” Merlin tries joking, taking the paper and scanning it. “Are they cutting funding for fractals again—oh my God.” The photo is blurry but not enough that Merlin doesn’t recognise himself walking too close next to Arthur, leaning over to hold a bit of food up to Arthur’s mouth—chicken, Merlin remembers, from the kebabs they’d had—both of them laughing. He looks at the caption, feeling sick, but there are only a few inane words about the Prince of Skiing finding love at last with too many question marks but no mention of Merlin’s name.

He feels sullied, but after the first shock fades he senses it’s not because he’s in the paper—on some level he should have remembered that Arthur is a minor celebrity and the paps really might be lurking in the bushes the two of them walk past—but because the two of them are in the paper, cast into these roles for titillation and scandal when they’ve barely figured themselves out, when they haven’t had a serious chance yet to fumble their way into the relationship the tabloids already want to scream about.

He hands the paper back to Will, shrugging. Will isn’t the person Merlin wants to scream at, and he certainly isn’t the person he wants to talk about the picture with; Merlin knows he won’t really understand, though he’d try. “So?”

“ _So_?”

“It’s a picture of me.”

“In the newspaper. With _Arthur Pendragon_.”

“Yes,” Merlin agrees, and watches the gears whir behind Will’s eyes.

“If he hurts you,” Will says finally, “I will rend him.”

“Okay!” Merlin says over the last syllables of Will’s threat, pushing Will back into his classroom. “This was fun but you have children to educate; let’s never do this again.”

Will sticks his head back out of the door when Merlin’s halfway down the corridor. “Merlin!” 

Merlin looks over his shoulder, half-turning, and Will hesitates.

“Thanks for the take-away,” Will says. Merlin can tell it isn’t what Will meant to say, but when he smiles and waves in acknowledgement Will ducks back into the room. Merlin walks away, whistling. It’s not much, but he can work with it.

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Sunday, 10 July at 3:27 PM  
Subject: July is the longest month of my life

When are you due back?

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Sunday, 10 July at 3:34 PM  
Subject: 16 july

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Sunday, 10 July at 3:35 PM  
Subject: Re: 16 july

should i call when im back?

::

From: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
To: apendragon@gmail.com  
Date: Sunday, 10 July at 3:38 PM  
Subject: Re: 16 july

skip that and come over instead.

::

From: apendragon@gmail.com  
To: hiswizardliness@yahoo.com  
Date: Sunday, 10 July at 3:41 PM  
Subject: Re: 16 july

ill be there

*


	6. Chapter 6

:::

_We spend some time together walking  
Spend some time just talking  
’Bout who we were  
You held my hand so very tightly   
And told me what we could be  
Dreamin’ of_

:::

 

The buzzer on the door rings just as Merlin’s stepping out of the shower, and he slips while he’s hurrying to the door, losing his towel and nearly breaking his neck. He takes a breath, straightening himself out, and walks the last few steps to the door in a statelier manner. He isn’t expecting anyone else—Freya and Will are both away for the weekend—but the sight of Arthur standing at his door still shocks him.

“You’re early,” he says, the first thing that comes to mind. 

“Hello, Merlin,” Arthur says, grinning. “I missed you, too, Merlin.”

“It’s a little creepy, how you keep showing up on my doorstep. How did you get my address, anyway?”

Arthur’s grin gains more teeth. “There isn’t much money won’t buy. Aren’t you going to invite me in?” 

He doesn’t wait for Merlin to reply, stepping past him into the flat and looking around with interest, brushing close enough to Merlin that Merlin can smell him, a warm musky scent beneath the lingering traces of aftershave. Arthur’s wearing a light t-shirt that looks too expensive for the name and slacks and ugly loafers, an obscenely large pair of sunglasses dangling from the fingers of his left hand, and Merlin wants all of it off, _now_.

“Do you make a habit of opening the door like this?” Arthur asks, and he could be referring to the way Merlin’s dripping all over the floor, except that his eyes are fixed on the erection Merlin’s towel does nothing at all to hide.

“Special circumstances,” Merlin manages. “How was France?”

“I don’t want to talk about fucking _France_ ,” says Arthur, stepping close and sliding his hands over Merlin’s hips just above the towel, moving slow, almost tentative, as if he’s testing something.

Merlin shuts the door.

Arthur has him pressed up against it in seconds, his mouth hot and slick against Merlin’s, his hands all over Merlin’s skin. Merlin’s towel disappears, lost somewhere on the ground as Merlin shoves Arthur back, tearing at Arthur’s shirt, desperate for skin, to see what Arthur looks like stripped down to his essentials, wants to rip away the masks Arthur wears until there’s nothing left between them. 

They make slow progress. Arthur turns out to have a penchant for pushing Merlin into walls while Merlin tries to walk him backward toward the bedroom, which is delightful and under other circumstances behaviour Merlin would encourage, except that it isn’t convenient for Merlin getting his hands into Arthur’s trousers or for having Arthur in his bed five minutes ago. Arthur sucks terrible, juvenile marks into Merlin’s neck while Merlin tries to protest—which is made more difficult when Arthur presses his thigh between Merlin’s legs, the cloth of his trousers growing damp from Merlin’s cock. 

“Bastard,” Merlin gasps when Arthur bites at the tendons in his shoulder, his hand sliding down to cup Merlin’s arse, spreading Merlin’s cheeks and pulling him closer. Arthur laughs, looking wild and delighted, his lips pink and his hair wrecked. “Clothes,” Merlin decides, plucking at Arthur’s slacks, which he is _still wearing_. “Less of them, now.” Arthur’s response is to kiss Merlin again, his tongue driving in to stroke along Merlin’s own, but he lets Merlin guide him until they’re in Merlin’s bedroom and he can push Merlin down onto the bed.

Merlin goes down easily, sprawling back as he watches Arthur struggle out of his shoes and trousers. Arthur’s cock is tenting his boxers, which are chequered grey and boring; it makes Arthur look a little ridiculous but desire catches Merlin straight in the gut, fire taking hold in a sudden fever. He wants Arthur pressed against his tongue; he wants Arthur in him, over him, pushing deep into Merlin’s body or sliding down his throat until Arthur is all he can taste or smell or feel, until there’s nothing else and no hope of salvation except their bodies together, the consecration of their mingled sweat.

He sits up and grabs Arthur by the waist, tugging him in close until Merlin can lean forward to nose along the line of Arthur’s cock, blowing out a slow, hot breath.

“Fuck,” Arthur says, unsteady, and Merlin’s own breath hitches. He pushes the boxers down to Arthur’s knees, letting Arthur’s cock spring free to bob in the air so he can take it in one hand, giving a slow stroke and letting his fingers barely tease over the head. It’s thick, hot in his hand, liquid pearling at the tip already. Merlin leans in for a taste, dragging the tip of his tongue over the slit.

Arthur makes a strangled noise. “ _Merlin_.” His hands are on Merlin’s shoulders, pressing there lightly as if he doesn’t know quite where else to put them, what might be acceptable.

Merlin settles his shoulders and takes firm hold of Arthur’s hips, his fingers sinking a little into the soft flesh of Arthur’s arse. He starts slow—he wants to savour this, ignoring the frustrated noises Arthur is making and the insistent throb of his own cock. He licks up the length of Arthur’s dick, mouths at it with sloppy, loose-lipped kisses, takes a detour to explore Arthur’s balls while Arthur threads a cautious hand into Merlin’s hair.

“Merlin,” Arthur says again, sounding strangled. Merlin glances up. He knows the picture he makes: mouth red and shiny and inches from Arthur’s cock. “Will you please just do something?”

“I am doing something,” Merlin retorts, but he’s no longer strong enough to resist the temptation. 

Arthur hisses out a breath when Merlin closes his lips around his cock, tightening the hand he has in Merlin’s hair, and Merlin thinks he’s going to say something, anything, but Arthur only bites his lips and lets out a trembling breath. Merlin thinks Arthur probably isn’t a talker—Arthur’s too practiced at control to let himself go like that—but now he wants to see how far he can push Arthur, whether or not he can make Arthur scream. He goes deeper, loosening his jaw while Arthur hisses above him and tries not to thrust forward while Merlin tries to encourage him, fingertips digging hard into Arthur’s skin.

It takes Arthur a moment to get the hint, to rock his hips carefully forward, and Merlin has one hand on his own cock now, sliding his fingers around it while Arthur pushes into his mouth. Arthur’s dick slides easy now, slick with Merlin’s saliva; Merlin’s chin is wet with it, his being narrowed to the taste of Arthur rubbing against his tongue, but it isn’t enough. Arthur isn’t fraying at the edges yet, and Merlin desperately wants to see him fall apart. He pulls off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and scoots backward on the bed to make room for Arthur. “Come here,” he orders.

Despite being breathless, Arthur’s still able to grumble. “Bossy,” he says, and promptly trips as he tries to move, because he’s forgotten his boxers are still around his knees. 

Merlin’s gasping from laughing too hard by the time Arthur untangles himself, and doesn’t even think to defend himself until Arthur is already looming over him, settling down on top of Merlin and sliding their cocks together.

“Shit,” Merlin says, grabbing Arthur’s arms and arching up. “You don’t play fair.”

Arthur grinds back down against him. “Who said this was about playing fair?”

The lube he’d put out that morning is just far enough out of reach that Merlin fumbles and nearly drops it on the floor while Arthur scrapes his stubble against Merlin’s jaw and licks a trail of messy kisses from Merlin’s mouth to just behind his ear; he loses half the box of condoms when Arthur closes his teeth over his collarbone.

“Stop, stop,” he grumbles, shoving with his wrists and elbows until he can wriggle free of Arthur’s weight. Arthur gives him a dark look until he realises what Merlin’s doing: that Merlin’s slicking his fingers and reaching down, giving his own cock a few pulls while he spreads his legs before reaching further back. 

“Holy shit,” Arthur breathes, and Merlin huffs a laugh, looking at Arthur while he concentrates on the finger he’s pushing slowly inside himself. Maybe it’s too fast—Merlin knows if he lets Arthur drape himself over Merlin again he’ll come embarrassingly shortly—but something about Arthur makes Merlin want to go fast, to make stupid decisions and never regret them as long as he can leave marks under Arthur’s skin that soap and time will never rinse away. He closes his eyes and feels the bed shift as Arthur moves closer, barely managing not to jump when Arthur lays a hand on his stomach, covering the movement by adding another finger. 

Arthur smoothes his other hand up Merlin’s inner thigh, maddeningly slow. “Can I...”

“ _Please_.”

Merlin isn’t sure why he expected Arthur to be tentative about this; he’s sure this isn’t Arthur’s first time in bed with a man, and even if it was—the thought makes something tense delightfully behind his liver—Arthur’s the type to decide what he wants and _take_ it. But it’s a surprise when Arthur pushes a finder in before Merlin has a chance to pull out his own, and Merlin groans at the feeling: the familiarity of his own fingers interrupted by the slide of Arthur’s hand, their knuckles knocking together, and it’s too much, not enough. The stretch starts in his arse and tingles all the way down his nerves, prickling in his scalp and the bottoms of his feet, and the anticipation is terrible, growing fat and heavy and pushing at Merlin’s throat as he watches the expression on Arthur’s face.

Merlin pulls his fingers out, pushes the lube at Arthur. “Do it,” he says, not quite begging. “Arthur—”

“Okay,” Arthur says, scrambling up on his knees; his fingers shake when he tries to open the condom. “Okay, Merlin; hold on.”

Merlin holds. He holds his knees and pulls them up, spreading himself for Arthur, and waits. Arthur squirts lube all over the sheets by accident.

“Jesus,” he mutters, crawling over Merlin and reaching down to guide his cock. “You should be illegal.”

Merlin scrabbles in the sheets for something to hold onto while Arthur works his way forward, the pressure overwhelming. He finds nothing; wraps his fists in the fabric when Arthur stills, his cock deep in Merlin and his head bowed, his balls pressed against Merlin’s arse and his breathing laboured. “Fuck,” Arthur says, and then, “fuck,” again.

“Yes,” Merlin agrees, wrapping his legs around Arthur. “ _Fuck_.”

Arthur grins, something feral in his eyes, and complies. Merlin arches up to meet him, working toward a rhythm while Arthur digs his knees into the bed, his breath hot and quick on Merlin’s neck; Merlin whimpers when he slams forward, and can’t stop, Arthur pressing broken noises out of him on each thrust. When Arthur adjusts, resettling before driving back in, Merlin _moans_ , slamming his hands back against the wall as if that will anchor him, as if anything could help him from being blown away in this gale. 

“Christ, Merlin,” Arthur says, wide-eyed and wrecked. “You are so—” He doesn’t finish, diving down to kiss away the last of Merlin’s breath instead, shoving his cock relentlessly in—in—in—until Merlin is almost sobbing, clawing at Arthur’s shoulders, desperate because Arthur keeps brushing against his prostate but only barely, only enough to drive Merlin mad. Pleasure collects low and hot in him, running along his spine and down his legs, and he _needs_.

Arthur shifts again, hoisting Merlin’s legs onto his shoulders; his cock nearly slips out entirely and Merlin protests, fingers sliding along the sweat-slick skin of Arthur’s arms until Arthur stuffs him full again. 

This, Merlin thinks, dizzy— _this_ is what he wants: bent almost double, Arthur over him, shoving his prick deep into Merlin, slamming up against the place that makes Merlin see stars, makes him howl. He tries to muffle the noise, presses his wrist against his mouth, but Arthur makes him move it, pinning his hands to the bed. The cheap mattress creaks beneath them, the headboard thumping steadily against the wall; Merlin’s heart is juddering in his chest, and when Arthur gasps and starts to talk, he has no defences left.

“Let me hear it,” Arthur says. His hair is sweaty, his fringe in his face; Merlin can see how dark his eyes have grown. “Let it out, tell me how it feels. Tell me—” He gulps for breath, and Merlin gives a broken groan, the very air punched out of him. “I can—God, Merlin—I can feel you; can you feel how tight you are around me?”

“Fuck,” Merlin gasps, the word thin and drawn out into too many syllables. “Arthur.”

“You feel so good,” Arthur says, his voice gone shaky. He lets go of Merlin’s hands to grab his cock instead, pulling too fast, too rough, but the buzz in his nerves is boiling over; Merlin can feel the tightening as the pleasure spikes, drawing all his muscles taut. All he can do is let Arthur pull him along for the ride now, lay back and feel the bruises forming where their bodies slam together; he can barely manage the motor control to raise one hand, pressing his fingers hard into Arthur’s shoulder.

“Gonna—” he gasps, and Arthur speeds his hand, slick, the sound a filthy counterpoint to the slap of skin between them as he fucks Merlin, quicker now, the rhythm off.

“Let me see,” Arthur says. “Merlin, let me see—”

Merlin can’t help the noise that comes out of him, crawling up from his belly to the back of his throat while he cock jerks in Arthur’s hand, streaking pearly come all over his chest. It splashes on Merlin’s jaw, and Arthur leans down to lick it off—Merlin whines at that, a high, frustrated noise ripped from the roof of his mouth, and his cock gives a final spasm but orgasm has wrung him out to leave him dry and boneless. Arthur presses his legs back wider, fucks him desperately, his face screwed up but his eyes fixed on Merlin. Merlin feels everything like a blow, oversensitive—and then Arthur is groaning, shuddering through his own orgasm before collapsing onto Merlin.

It takes Merlin a moment to recover enough to push weakly at Arthur’s shoulder; he doesn’t want Arthur to move, but he can’t breathe under Arthur’s weight. Arthur grumbles something indistinct but he pulls out carefully, moving just enough to dispose of the condom before flopping back down next to Merlin and burying his face in the pillow. Merlin thinks about showering, or at least finding a flannel—there’s come on his chest and lube sliding down between his thighs—but in the end he falls asleep while he’s still trying to muster up the energy to move.

The early morning sun is just peering through the open window when he wakes, on his side and half-hard, with Arthur probing curiously at his arse. He’s a little sore, and when he moves the hair on his chest pulls uncomfortably where the come has dried, but Arthur’s fingers are slipping easily into him, stroking lube into the stretched muscle of his hole. “Mmm,” he says, propping one leg up to give Arthur a better angle. “Yes, please.”

Arthur laughs. “Slag.”

“Why are people always saying that?” Merlin says, craning his head back to frown at Arthur, which only makes Arthur laugh again. 

“That only proves the point.”

“I’ll prove your point,” Merlin mutters, which isn’t the wittiest comeback but he’s too busy twisting around to get his elbows underneath him with half a mind of riding Arthur until Arthur can’t form words, let alone stupid arguments. Arthur traps him before he can go far, wrapping an arm around him and pulling Merlin close enough that Arthur’s cock slides easily along the crease of Merlin’s arse.

Arthur presses his lips to the back of Merlin’s neck. “God, I want you.”

Merlin pushes his arse back, demanding. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?” Arthur already has a condom on, and Merlin is not patient in the morning: he wants sex, and a shower, and breakfast, and he wants Arthur for all of them.

“Maybe,” Arthur says while he pushes his cock in. His voice is quiet; Merlin’s not sure he’s supposed to hear. “Just for you.”

They fuck there, just like that, pressed together, Merlin’s legs tangled up with Arthur’s, and when Merlin doesn’t come Arthur drags him into the shower, sucking his cock with two fingers pushing hard against Merlin’s prostate until he _does_ , slipping and almost braining himself on the curtain rod while orgasm robs him of muscle function. Arthur complains about breakfast; Merlin doesn’t pay much attention because Arthur is wearing only boxers—new ones; Merlin had asked who the slag was now, expecting to stay overnight, and Arthur had rolled his eyes and said, “It’s only being prepared for all possibilities, didn’t you learn _anything_ in school?”

“I doubt bringing an extra pair of boxers in case you fuck someone’s brains out so hard you have to stay until morning is an acceptable topic for any class.”

Arthur isn’t listening, preoccupied with his bowl. “What is this? Merlin, you are feeding me sticks and tiny rocks with paste; I hardly think that’s hospitable.”

“It’s granola, Arthur. And yoghurt.”

“It’s not real breakfast.”

“Aren’t you the spokesperson for this granola company?”

Arthur makes a face. “Are you sure you’re not vegan?”

“It’s _yoghurt_ ,” Merlin points out. “Dairy.”

“Whatever,” Arthur says, pulling Merlin into the bedroom and ordering bacon from somewhere—Merlin suspects Geoffrey—before tossing his mobile aside and tackling Merlin back into bed.

*

Eventually, Merlin has to go back to work, and Arthur has to go back to whatever rich and famous skiers do when there’s no snow to ski on. 

“Dry-training,” he tells Merlin patiently, but Merlin only snickers and kisses Arthur thoroughly before letting him leave. 

“Stay out of trouble,” he advises, and Arthur responds by sending him texts every hour documenting his every move. Merlin has a hard time explaining to Gaius why he keeps laughing in the stockroom. 

The texts grow less frequent as the days go by, but that’s mostly because every day brings Arthur further into Merlin’s life in person. They go to dinner at a tiny Italian place Merlin loves; Arthur makes fun of the wine list, and Merlin makes fun of Arthur. They walk from Arthur’s house to Merlin’s flat, measuring the distance not in footsteps or city streets but in drifting conversations and the number of times their fingertips brush. Merlin hums along with every mindlessly joyful pop song that passes through his head until Freya calls him obnoxious and Will all but throws him out of the flat, but even that isn’t enough to make him stop; he calls Arthur and meets him in the Café Nero around the corner, and he can’t stop drumming his fingers along to the song on the radio there. Arthur takes his hand in his own, pressing it against the table until Merlin gives a sheepish smile and stops, but the music only passes through him in other ways, singing through his veins like some golden drug.

“You fidget too much,” Arthur tells him a few days later, while Merlin is tapping out a syncopated melody on Arthur’s knuckles, sprawled against him on the Tube.

“Your fault,” says Merlin, and kisses him.

They go to the cinema to see one of the summer blockbusters the reviews have told them they should not miss, and make a spectacle of themselves before going back to Arthur’s place long before the credits, stumbling in the dark and giggling—giggling!—until they’ve found their way out of their clothes and into each other, licking the taste of butter and popcorn out of each other’s mouths with focused desperation while Merlin pins Arthur down and rides him, hurtling toward something darker and warmer than the night, heedless of the bruises rising on his skin.

Merlin wakes in the morning to find Arthur sprawled naked next to him, snoring. His breath is foul and he sticks to Merlin a bit where he’s thrown an arm over Merlin’s chest, but Merlin can’t quite stop the grin from rising up; can’t quite put paid to the ludicrous feeling of contentment welling up in his chest.

* 

Arthur doesn’t enjoy flaunting his wealth. He prefers flying under the radar, and this combined with the fact that he is a very boring person means he doesn’t get out much. Merlin has developed several theories about this, but usually Arthur protests or refuses to hear them, so Merlin keeps them to himself.

He hadn’t considered the possibility that Arthur doesn’t go out because the sight of Arthur Pendragon in a tuxedo is actually harmful to the health of people around him.

“Merlin, stop,” Arthur says, dropping a cufflink when Merlin stages a sneak attack. “ _Merlin_ , no, you are not allowed to wrinkle this tuxedo.”

“The romance is gone,” complains Merlin, leaning his head against Arthur’s shoulder.

“Romance has nothing to do with wrinkled clothes,” Arthur says, bending down to retrieve his cufflink; Merlin would disagree but he’s distracted by the curve of Arthur’s arse. 

“Just a little wrinkling?”

“No,” Arthur says firmly. “Absolutely not.”

“This tuxedo thing is overrated,” Merlin grouches, flopping down onto the bed. “Appetizers aren’t important anyway—you can show up a little late.”

“I’m giving a speech—” says Arthur, and bites the words off when Merlin slides to the floor on his knees. “ _Mer_ lin.”

“ _Ar_ tur,” Merlin says, mocking, while he’s busy with Arthur’s fly. “I won’t wrinkle you, I promise. I’ll barely touch you.”

“I don’t think,” Arthur starts, but Merlin’s having none of that. He has Arthur in front of him looking better than James Bond ever did, and he’s hardly going to let him walk out without _something_ to remind him what he’ll come home to. 

Arthur’s late for the benefit; he sends Merlin a text during the second course filled with emotional exclamation points. Merlin sends back a smiley face. 

“Morgana wants to meet you,” Arthur says later, after he’s carefully removed every single piece of his outfit and finally allowed Merlin to properly ravish him.

Merlin rests his chin on Arthur’s chest. “Morgana?”

“My sister. Half-sister, really.”

“With the dog, I remember.”

Arthur glares. “Will you shut up about that dog?” he says, trying to turn away. Merlin holds him back.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He hasn’t spent the last month memorising everything he can about Arthur for nothing; Arthur’s been crotchety since he walked back in the door.

“Nothing.”

“Arthur.”

“It’s nothing, I said.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, stern. “I thought we already established that I’m not psychic. Tell me.”

“Iwnmeleghbl,” Arthur says into the crook of his elbow, which he’s thrown over his face. Merlin pries the arm away and narrows his eyes until Arthur sighs in defeat.

“I wanted you there with me, alright? That’s all.”

“Oh,” says Merlin, feeling the tips of his ears go pink. “I didn’t have anything to wear, anyway,” he points out.

“I don’t care.”

Merlin shifts until his head is pillowed on Arthur’s shoulder, his body curled until he’s poking Arthur’s side with his knees. “Maybe next time.”

“Maybe,” Arthur says, and rests his cheek against Merlin’s head.

*

“Really, Arthur,” Morgana says. “You needn’t have a possessive hand on Merlin at all times; it isn’t as if I’m about to _attack_ him.”

“Says you,” Arthur retorts, and Morgana rolls her eyes at Merlin.

“Contrary to what my brother may have told you, I do not have an army of the undead at my beck and call,” she tells him, and Merlin grins.

“The way I heard it, it was more an army of satellites.”

“Well,” Morgana says with a tiny, satisfied smile, “I can’t comment on that, of course.”

“More tomatoes, Merlin?” Arthur asks, too loudly. 

“Hush, Arthur,” Morgana says. “The grown-ups are talking. “He’s just jealous,” she confides to Merlin. “He can’t even figure out how to work his iPhone.”

Arthur throws grass at her. “I want you to know that I made your food special. There’s rat in it, just for you.”

“You did not; this is from Ninoska's, even if you did pretend you made it yourself.”

“I _helped_ make it.” 

“You did not.”

Merlin lies back while Arthur and Morgana bicker, closing his eyes against the sun. The grass is soft under him, though a bit prickly where his legs stick off of the blanket Morgana had insisted on. He supposed if he was wearing a cream-coloured silk suit, he’d want a blanket, too. 

It had been a little bit of a shock to discover that Arthur’s Morgana had been the same as Gwen’s—Morgana doesn’t remember meeting Merlin, though they’ve been introduced before, but she does remember Will from Gwen’s party: a fact Merlin will never breath a word about to Will, for fear of Will becoming completely insufferable. Led mostly by Arthur’s descriptions of her, Merlin had been afraid that Morgana would be hideous to him, dismissing him as unworthy of associating with, but she’s turned out to be—not nice; nice is a word Merlin can never see coupled with Morgana—but surprising, entertaining from the moment she kicked off her intimidating heels to walk barefoot on the grass and show Merlin an array of top secret high-tech gadgets she’s been fine-tuning. Merlin’s nerves are almost gone at this point, soothed by the picnic and Morgana’s laughter; only Arthur is still twitchy, which Merlin thinks is his incurable reflex to Morgana by now.

“Merlin,” Morgana says, after sunburns drive them to wrap up the picnic and flee for the shelter of the trees. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” Merlin says, not sure whether he should shake her hand. Morgana solves his dilemma by taking him by the shoulders and kissing him on both cheeks.

“If you’re ever in Paris, you must drop by,” she tells him.

Merlin gives a lopsided grin. “Of course; I’ll slot you in on my next weekend jaunt to the Continent.”

Arthur has an arm around him now, territorial. “If he’s ever in Paris, he’ll be dropping by _me_ ,” he says. “He won’t have time to see you.”

“Always lovely to see you, too, darling,” Morgana says, planting a wet smacking kiss on Arthur’s forehead before he can duck away, and sails away to hail a cab, fluttering her fingers behind her in a casual farewell.

“I think she liked you,” Arthur says, hushed, as they watch her go. He turns Merlin around by the shoulders, inspecting Merlin’s face closely before turning to his arms and chest, patting Merlin down as if he suspects Merlin of hiding something under his clothes.

“What are you doing?” Merlin asks when Arthur cups a hand behind his knee to lift it up.

“Checking for damage,” Arthur says, straightening. “How do you feel? Any odd pains? Did she give you anything to eat that tasted strange? You might have nanobots in your bloodstream, and you’d never even know.”

“You’re mental,” says Merlin, laughing, and grabs Arthur’s hand before Arthur can use it to do anything else. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Arthur,” Merlin assures him, “I’m absolutely fine.”

“Good,” Arthur says, and leans against Merlin, just a little, when Merlin reaches for his hand.

*

Arthur goes to Utah for week to train with the US team, and comes back with a tan and hideous new goggles.

“I am never kissing you again,” Merlin says when Arthur puts them on. Arthur frowns and tries to trap him against the bed. “No, really,” Merlin insists. “Never again.”

“Never?” Arthur asks, settling his body down over Merlin’s, which is not playing fair.

“They’re gold,” Merlin points out. “And _mirrored_.”

“Kirsten told me I looked like a tool,” says Arthur. “But I like them.”

Of course he does, Merlin thinks, resigned. Arthur had stepped off the plane in a tie and tailored trousers, and now he’s wearing a faded green t-shirt with holes in the hem and _BIG DOGS_ printed across the front. Of course he likes his tacky gold goggles. They’ll match his tacky gold helmet, after all. 

“At least take them off right now.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“I’ll make you,” Merlin says, and fights to free his hands. Arthur fights back, fights _dirty_ , and they struggle, laughing, until the goggles are lying in a heap on the floor with their clothes.

They’re at Arthur’s and no one is about except Geoffrey, who’s puttering around the distant kitchen and half-deaf anyway. Merlin grabs handfuls of the crisp sheets and doesn’t try to muffle the sounds he makes when Arthur presses into him, doesn’t bite his lips together to keep the words back when he begs Arthur for more, for faster, until the oak headboard bangs the wall with every stroke.

“God, I missed you,” Arthur says after, quiet. Merlin’s dozing next to him, enjoying the tingle of his sweat drying and the scrape of Arthur’s skin against his own, but he turns his head on the pillow to look over at Arthur. 

“Missed you, too,” he says. Arthur’s curled on his side toward Merlin, one arm under his head to prop it up. His other hand lies on Merlin’s stomach. Merlin plays with Arthur’s fingers. “It’s too bad you couldn’t make them fly here instead. Utah can’t be that nice.”

Arthur smiles. “But they have mountains, and I’m only one person where they’re a team. Hard to justify.”

“I know.”

Arthur rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling but he doesn’t try to pull his hand away. “Do you know there’s never been a British skier who’s brought home a medal?”

“You’ve said that before,” Merlin reminds him. “And it’s not true; you have.”

“No, I mean a big medal—from the Olympics, I mean, or the World Championship. No one’s even placed.”

“You won silver at the Cup this year.” Merlin wonders if Arthur’s thinking about his crash, how close he’d been to Torino before torn ligaments ripped it all away.

“My father could have done it,” Arthur says, catching Merlin by surprise. They haven’t talked about parents, especially Arthur’s; except for the times Arthur steps out of the room to take a call from Uther, it’s as if they both sprang from the earth fully formed. Merlin keeps very still, waiting.

“He had the best qualifying times; everyone thought he’d win. They were skiing in Austria, my parents; it was the first time my mother had been on skis since I was born. I have a picture my uncle gave me, before he stopped speaking to my father, of the two of them at the summit. It’s the only one I have of her.”

Arthur stops, and Merlin curls their hands together, holding Arthur’s steady against his skin. He knows this story already, knows what’s coming, but hearing Arthur tell it makes something break, crumbling, in his chest.

“They say it was quick, at least. She was gone before ski patrol even arrived. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. My father had the woman who hit her locked up the minute she came out of traction—they’d been friends, before, but that all ended the moment my mother died in my father’s arms. She’d been trying to convince my parents to try snowboarding; she’d been showing off.”

Merlin can’t help but start at that—he hadn’t known that bit of the story. Arthur tips his head to the side and gives Merlin a wry look. “There’s a reason Camelot was the last resort to let snowboarders in, and it isn’t that my father is particularly old-fashioned.”

“Arthur—”

“Don’t. I don’t really want to talk about it.” Arthur huffs out a breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“I’m glad you did,” Merlin says.

Arthur’s reply is rolling back over and kissing Merlin, slow and soft. Merlin takes it as the thanks it is, and they lie there trading kisses all afternoon, heedless while the sun sinks red and gold past the open windows until evening comes and rolls its light blanket over them both.

*

Merlin shows up late for the quiet birthday dinner Arthur’s arranged for himself, just the two of them and too much beautifully arranged sushi. He’s underdressed and without the present he’s been preparing for a week and too full of furious rage to apologise well.

“Arthur, I’m sorry,” he says, blowing by the stern maître-d as soon as he catches sight of Arthur alone at a white-covered table and collapsing into the empty chair he should have been in an hour earlier. “My mobile died, and the new shipment didn’t come until just before five.”

“It’s fine,” Arthur says, but he doesn’t _look_ fine; he looks like someone who’s spent an hour wondering if they’ve been stood up, if they should cut their losses and leave. The knot of his tie—the green one Merlin had made him buy in the name of diversity—is crooked, as if he’s been fussing with it.

“We had to inventory everything,” Merlin says, running his fingers through his hair in a useless effort to make it look more presentable. “Every single fucking thing, because otherwise half of goes missing overnight and we never know if it wasn’t delivered or if the shop’s been broken into again. And I should have made it on time anyway, but every single person I have worked with today has been certifiable or too thick to figure out _simple maths_ —”

“It’s fine,” Arthur repeats, interrupting. “Merlin, you’re here; that’s what counts.”

“I suppose,” Merlin says ungraciously, and forces himself to take a slow breath and smile at Arthur. “Happy birthday. I forgot your present.”

“You can give it to me later; my birthday isn’t until tomorrow, anyway.”

“It’ll have to wait until after you’re back from Camelot, unless you’ve changed your flight.”

“Then it’ll have to wait.”

Merlin frowns, and fidgets while Arthur pours a glass of wine.

“Here,” Arthur says, offering the glass to Merlin. “Take this and drink it slowly. The appetisers should be coming out soon.”

“You haven’t eaten yet?”

“Of course not.” Arthur looks affronted at the very suggestion. 

“I’m sorry; you must be starving. I am going to _kill_ Edgar—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says. “Really. It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” says Merlin, but he lets it drop. He sips at the wine and picks at the food when it comes, but he doesn’t have much of an appetite. He’d known this dinner was important, known Arthur never really celebrated his birthday; he should have tried harder to get away, to leave before they finished—though he knows he couldn’t have, knows leaving Edwin in charge would have been even more disastrous...

“Do you not like it?”

Merlin starts, and picks up his fork again. “Of course I do,” he tells Arthur. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Arthur studies him. “Why don’t you look for another job?”

“What?”

“You’re always complaining about this one; why can’t you find another one—a better one?”

Merlin shakes his head, face twisting into a scoffing laugh. “What, in this economy? I’m lucky to even _have_ a job.”

“You could go back to school, maybe, finish your degree.”

“On what money?” Merlin snaps. “Yours? Hardly. Besides, Gaius needs me; the place would fall apart if I left.” He’s only exaggerating slightly: Gaius has sharp eyes and wits but he spends most of his time puttering around talking to people and making herbal remedies in the back, and he keeps making noises about handing over the reins. Merlin’s the problem-solver, the businessman behind keeping them solvent. 

“So go to school part-time, then. I don’t see why you have to waste your life away in a job you hate. You could do so much more, Merlin; you’re talented, and I know you’re intelligent, no matter how much you hide it. You can still work in medicine, if that’s what you want, but you should get a better degree at least, so people take you seriously.”

“Why do I have to be a doctor to achieve something?” Merlin demands, furious, losing the last threads of his calm. “Do I need a title to be a real man?”

“I didn’t say—”

“You think everyone is so far beneath you,” says Merlin, throwing his napkin down on the table. “You think you can tell everyone what to do and they’ll be happy to do it, just because Arthur Pendragon told them to lick his shoes. But what do you do, Arthur? You fly around the world on your father’s fortune and play at being someone important when most people don’t care who the fuck you are. You’re the last person to be giving me career advice.”

Arthur looks struck, his face frozen into stone, one hand flat on the table by his plate. Merlin stands up, frustrated and appalled at his own words and still angry enough to not take them back. “Happy birthday,” he bites out, and leaves his chair pulled out behind him, ignoring the stares of the other patrons—all of them carefully coiffed and clad in pearls, he’s sure, all of them exuding that subtle elegance he never wants to master—while he slams out of the restaurant. 

He makes it half a block before he sits down on the kerb, hanging his hands and then his head between his knees. He’s famished now, hunger hitting hard as the anger recedes, but he doesn’t want sushi: he’s hungry for fish and chips, the kind Arthur had found two weeks before, hot and greasy and never enough; for spaghetti out of a box; for the mad Salvadorian kebab place where they know him now and always slip his favourite things into the bag free of charge.

Distantly, he notices someone’s come to sit beside him—Arthur. The pavement will probably ruin his trousers, Merlin thinks, but he’s glad Arthur’s there. They sit without talking, Merlin listening to the traffic rumbling by and staring at his shoes next to Arthur’s.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last. “It’s not really you I’m angry at.”

“I know,” Arthur says, and takes his hand. Merlin lets Arthur pull him up, and feels—just a little bit—better, as if there's been a tiny lightening in his soul.

*

Arthur’s usually over on Saturdays; he says because of coincidence and Merlin says because he has a terrible secret crush on the cast of Strictly Come Dancing, which Freya—and consequently Will and Merlin—watches religiously.

“I do not,” Arthur protests. “It’s a pointless show, anyway; I don’t know what you see in it.”

“Tess Daly is hot,” Will says from the floor. “That’s a point.” He reaches behind him to fish crisps out of the bowl Merlin has balanced on his stomach. 

They have a settee now, liberated from the side of the road by Freya, who takes the waste-not-want-not maxim to extremes. It smells like cats and peppermint and there’s a spring working loose in one corner, but it’s a rather pretty shade of periwinkle and is remarkably well-adapted to both watching telly and cuddling, which Merlin appreciates. He’s stretched out now, his legs a little too long but his head comfortably in Arthur’s lap. 

“That is _not_ a point,” says Arthur, and Freya throws a bit of yarn at him from where she’s folded herself into the old armchair with her knitting needles. She’s threatening to make Merlin a jumper, but so far Merlin is comforted by the fact that the project has proportions which would be much more fitting for Baron. 

“Just because you were raised on completely boring things and have no sense of humour doesn’t mean—”

“Oi!”

“She’s right, you know,” Merlin says, tilting his head back to look at Arthur properly. “Tragic, really.”

“You’re all mental,” says Arthur, but he doesn’t stop running h is fingers through Merlin’s hair, so Merlin figures he doesn’t really mean it.

Arthur makes a warm pillow, possibly the most comfortable one Merlin’s ever had; he manages to keep from closing his eyes but he’s sure that unless something truly exciting happens he’s probably going to wind up falling asleep in Arthur’s lap again.

“Come on,” Will says when they run out of crisps, poking Merlin in the ribs. “Bring the bowl and help me.”

“Why do I have to help you?”

“Because,” Will says, very reasonably, “I said so.”

“I hate your teacher voice,” Merlin grumbles, but he drags himself up and follows Will to the worktop.

“Merlin,” Will says gravely while he’s pouring more crisps into the bowl. “I want you to know that I respect your life choices.”

Merlin stops, a handful of crisps halfway to his mouth, and gives Will a suspicious look.

“I support your relationship with Arthur,” Will announces. Merlin wonders if the staff at Will’s school had attended a training recently, and if that’s why Will sounds like he stood in front of the tiny mirror in their bathroom, practicing and using photos as an audience. Merlin’s seen him do it before.

“Will—”

“I’ll still rend him if he hurts you, of course—”

“Will!”

Will claps Merlin on the shoulder. “This is what friends are for,” he informs Merlin. “To help you hide the body.”

“You read that on a t-shirt,” Merlin accuses. Will shrugs.

“So what? Merlin, if you ever need to dispose of Arthur’s body, I hope you’ll come to me. Come to think of it,” he adds, thoughtful, “there are a few students I’d like to take care of at the same time. Nevertheless, I’ve decided you can keep him.”

“Will, that’s enough,” Merlin orders, mortified, looking at Arthur—Arthur, who has propped his chin on the back of the settee and is listening avidly to every word.

“You make me sound like a stray dog that followed you home,” Arthur comments.

Freya tosses another bit of yarn at him. “Well, you were a bit like that, yeah.”

“Fantastic,” says Arthur. “Everything is becoming so much clearer now.” He looks back at Will and Merlin. “Please, don’t stop on my account.”

“This conversation is over,” Merlin decides, and refuses to share the crisps.

*

Arthur is training and running all over the world at the drop of a hat—he goes to New Zealand for a competition and Merlin sulks about it even though he _knows_ it’s winter there, he is aware the world is round and revolves around the sun, thanks—but he’s mostly in England, and mostly with Merlin. They argue about sport and Harry Potter and bananas and the global economic crisis, which Arthur insists Merlin is hopelessly naive about until Merlin locks him out of the house in a fit of pique. Arthur climbs through a window and they fight about politics and whether Merlin should just move to Mars and set up a one-man colony, and when they’ve run out of arguments they wind up in bed, and Merlin’s never considered make-up sex to be all that good before, but sex while Arthur is still crackling with emotion is really, really good.

Even as summer cools, the sky lowering and turning grey with autumn, Merlin still feels swept up in the frantic golden whirlwind of new infatuation. It’s harder with Arthur gone more often, but Arthur doesn’t disappear or cling too hard though he’s away most of the time. They talk on the phone, and Arthur still sends poorly spelled emails and ridiculous texts, and Merlin’s workplace productivity has never been lower but he finds he doesn’t give a single fuck about it.

He thinks it shouldn’t be possible, for one person to make someone else so deliriously happy and yet at the same time make them want to punch them in the face, but somehow with Arthur it is—and it takes Merlin entirely too long to figure out why.

The day is warm for November, and the two of them are hiding away from the rest of the world, though later Arthur is supposed to go fête someone or other as the representative of brands which are interested in taking advantage of the gathered media and dignitaries to polish their reputation. For now, though, Arthur’s on his back reading about mountaineering, the book held close to his nose, and Merlin’s head is comfortably pillowed on Arthur’s stomach. Merlin is toying with the poppy pinned to Arthur’s sombre-coloured shirt, his mind comfortably blank because there’s nothing he feels like doing and nowhere else he feels like going. There’s a tiny thought that’s been niggling at the back of his head for weeks now, buried deep, and he keeps himself quiet, waiting for it to shake itself loose and surface. 

It comes, as he expects it to, and knocks him unexpectedly sideways, shakes him so completely that Arthur notices.

“What’s the matter?” Arthur asks, lifting his book up so he can frown down at Merlin in concern.

“I—” Merlin starts, but he can’t say it, not yet. “We’re sort of... dating, aren’t we?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Arthur. “We sort of are.” There’s the beginnings of a crease in his forehead, which Merlin knows he’ll fret over this for the rest of the day and refuse to admit as much. 

“I’m glad,” Merlin says. 

Arthur looks at him for a moment longer, and goes back to his book. “You think too much.”

“I thought you said I don’t think enough.”

“No,” Arthur says, turning the page he’s on. “Right now you’re thinking too much; you’ll overheat your poor little brain doing that. Maybe later, if you’re good, I’ll distract you with my sexual prowess.” 

“Please,” says Merlin, covering his face with a hand. “Never say those words again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll hit you with a shoe, that’s why.”

Arthur spends the rest of the day whispering _sexual prowess_ in Merlin’s ear whenever he thinks he can get away with it, and Merlin can’t bring himself to mind, not when this new thought is still sitting warm and strange somewhere between his ears and the top of his spine.

*


	7. Chapter 7

:::

_And I don’t know  
Why it has to be this way  
And I don’t know the cure  
But please believe  
Someone else has felt this before_

:::

 

“Oh God,” Merlin says on the train, because he’s just now fully realising how fucked he is. “She’s going to cook everything in the world and force you to eat it all.”

“I like to eat,” Arthur says, which is the truth; Merlin doesn’t know where he puts it all. He’d never thought of skiing as a very strenuous sport before he met Arthur and his one-hundred-press-ups-before-breakfast routine. 

“You don’t understand,” Merlin tells him. “When I say everything, I mean _everything_. There will be nothing left in the shops by the time she’s through.”

“Relax,” Arthur says. His hand is resting on Merlin’s knee, but the comfort isn’t nearly enough to stave off the feeling of impending doom. “You worry too much. Everything will be fine.”

“Famous last words,” Merlin predicts, and adds, darkly: “She’s going to get out all the photo albums, just you wait.”

“Good,” says Arthur, far too cheerful. “At last I will be able to answer the questions thousands have asked before me: did your ears come like that, or was it the result of watching Dumbo at an impressionable age?”

Merlin hits him for that, a punch to the arm too soft to do anything but make Arthur laugh before propping his head on Merlin and dozing off. Merlin’s sure Arthur is drooling on his shoulder.

“You’re disgusting,” Merlin tells him, but he says it quietly, and when the baby across from them begins to fuss, he glares at it until its mother carries it out of the compartment, making cooing noises. 

Arthur sleeps most of the way, but Merlin can’t, keeps fidgeting and running his ticket through his fingers, watching the city disappear and be replaced by more docile landscapes: hedges and fields grey with winter, smoke trickling out of chimneys to streak across the sky. Night comes quickly, bringing a driving rain with it, and Arthur bullies Merlin into taking a taxi from the station into town. 

Hunith greets them at both with hugs when she opens the door, pulling them in out of the rain and fussing until they’ve both shed their coats and hats and shoes and she has them settled at the kitchen table with mountains of food in front of them.

“Mum, really,” Merlin protests when she pulls another plate down for the pie that’s just come out of the oven. “We’ll never eat it all.”

“Then we’ll have leftovers tomorrow,” his mum says, slicing an apple with quick, expert strokes of the battered knife Merlin remembers nearly cutting his finger off with when he and Will had gone through a nautical phase and had decided they needed to make scrimshaw for the sake of authenticity. “You don’t eat nearly enough; let a mother coddle her son while she has him.”

“We can’t have leftovers tomorrow,” Merlin protests. “It’s Christmas.”

“Christmas Eve,” his mother corrects. She smiles. “I suppose you’ll just have to eat more tonight, then, won’t you?”

“It’s all delicious,” Mrs Emrys,” Arthur says, spooning more potatoes onto his plate. Hunith beams and slides another roll in front of him.

“Thank you, Arthur; please, call me Hunith—I’ve never been Mrs Emrys, actually, and Doctor is so formal.”

Arthur shoots Merlin a look. “Merlin never mentioned that you’re a doctor.”

“It never came up,” Merlin says while Hunith sets the sliced apple in front of him. She stays by him, running her hand over his hair and trying to smooth down his cowlick, and Merlin feels all of twelve years old again, eating his mother’s cooking at the scarred wooden table in the kitchen that hasn’t changed since he was a boy. Even the chickens on the wallpaper are still marching stoutly on, though the paper’s begun to peel up at the corners.

“I started just like Merlin, working for Gaius while I studied,” his mum is telling Arthur. “When I finished, they needed a doctor here, so I came back home and here I stayed.”

Merlin’s heard the story a hundred times, fought over it and made his mother cry the day he dropped out of school for the last time and broke a plate with the Queen’s head on it in the argument that followed. The sting has faded now; there’s no hidden barb in the words anymore, and his mum doesn’t once stop smoothing his hair. Arthur’s looking at him, though, studying him closely, and Merlin shifts under the stare. “Apple?” he says, offering the plate, and Arthur takes it, letting the conversation go.

Arthur and Merlin do the washing up when Hunith takes a call from the grocer—Merlin thinks he’s probably not supposed to know what it’s about, but he figures the old man’s ulcer has flared up again, which gives him an excuse to call and fish for gossip.

“I like your mum,” Arthur says, scraping the last of the potatoes into a container while Merlin soaps the glasses. “She’s very... mum-like.”

“I suppose,” Merlin says, doubtful. Arthur hadn’t been around when Merlin’s mum had sent Merlin to dig holes in Mrs Richardson’s flowerbeds after Mrs Richardson complained that Dr Emrys’s garden—filled with herbs and hardly ever weeded and littered with Merlin’s own experiments—was a blight on the community.

“She is,” Arthur says, decisive, as if he makes it so by his decision. “I bet it was brilliant, growing up here.” 

“That’s one way to put it,” Merlin says, thinking of the public screaming match his mum had had with the town council over zoning laws when Merlin was sixteen and angry and hopelessly, desperately in love with the chief councillor’s son, who had spent the summer acquiring the bronzed body of a god.

Hunith’s voice drifts in from the other room, too gentle to pick out the words; she’s using the soothing, not quite stern tone she’s always used on hypochondriacs and on Merlin when he refused to do something. Arthur’s quiet beside Merlin, pensive, and Merlin waits for him to say whatever’s bothering him.

“She wanted you to be a doctor?” Arthur asks, while Merlin’s wiping the last plate dry. The question shouldn’t catch Merlin as unprepared as it does; he should have known to expect it.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, wiping his hands dry on the tea towel. “She was pretty broken up about it when I left uni. She found me the job with Gaius, actually; I think she hoped it’d change my mind.”

Arthur pulls out a chair from the table and sits, leaning back against the slender rails of its back. “You two fought about it.”

“Some,” Merlin says with a shrug. It’s a gross understatement. 

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to live a life she’d planned for me, and she didn’t see it that way.”

“Not that,” Arthur says, impatient. “I mean, why did you drop out?”

“Because I didn’t see the point of paying all that money for classes I hated.” Merlin pulls out the other chair, dropping into it before he realises he’s still holding the tea towel. He folds it carefully, lining up each edge exactly while Arthur thinks. Hunith had gone chalk-white when Merlin had said that to her, the first time he tried to drop out, and had demanded to know if that was the reason he was quitting. 

“Money’s an _idiotic_ reason to leave school,” she’d said, furious, and Merlin had shrunk into the same slatted chair and hadn’t said that the amount of money she was spending on his classes and books made his stomach curdle, hadn’t told her that despite his A-levels and his marks and the encouraging notes from his professors, he hated every single minute of it.

“We have plenty of money,” she’d told him, and that had been the end of that. They didn’t, really; they’d never had quite enough for everything. Merlin remembers the shame and confusion of it all, of everyone expecting him to have more than he did, the face of his friends falling when they saw where he lived. His mum had worked every waking hour and saved money from the day Merlin was born, but it had never been quite enough, and Merlin’s never been clear on the reason why. He’d asked, once, and when his mum hadn’t answered he’d gone snooping, but he’d found only whispers and illegible documents; it has something to do with his father, who had been sick or in trouble or both, and that’s all Merlin knows. It’s nearly the sum total of what he knows of his father at all, except that there’s a distant memory that stirs itself whenever Merlin strains enough: a dream, maybe, of a big man with a deep voice and a scratchy chin, who’d carried Merlin when he was tired.

“What did you want to do?” Arthur asks, and it takes Merlin a moment to remember what they’re talking about.

“What?”

“What did you want to do?” repeats Arthur. “If you could have chosen the first time.”

“Dunno,” Merlin says, pressing pleats into the tea towel. “Something with numbers; I think I would have been good at that.”

His mum walks in before Arthur can push any further, and apologises for the call.

“No need to apologise,” Arthur says as he stands up, all warm smiles, and presses her hand between his own. “I’m headed for bed, anyway. It’s been a long day.”

“I’ll show you where you’re sleeping,” Hunith says. “I’m afraid it’s only the fold-out in the other room, and there’s just the one bathroom—”

Arthur stops her with a peck on the cheek. “It sounds fine,” he tells her, and follows her out of the kitchen.

Merlin stays behind, folding and refolding the towel and gazing at the yellow clock on the wall without really looking at it until his mum comes back in. 

“Staying up late?” she asks. “You must be tired from the trip.” She pulls a tin down from a shelf and takes out two battered mugs, and Merlin smiles. 

“I remember when you used to do this when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Warm milk with a drop of tea,” his mum says. “Works like a charm every time, doesn’t it?”

“I still make it sometimes,” Merlin confesses, though he does it now mostly from nostalgia and not because the monsters beneath his bed have driven him to terrified insomnia.

His mum takes the towel he’s still toying with away while the milk heats, hanging it on a ring over the sink. “I like Arthur,” she says.

Deprived of the towel to worry, Merlin picks at the table. “He said the same about you.”

She smiles. “It’s the first time you’ve brought someone home for me to meet.”

“That’s not true; Gwen and Freya have both met you.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” his mum says, taking the milk off and fixing mugs for both of them. She passes Merlin one—his favourite, red, with gold dragons rearing up around the rim. “He’s the first boy you’ve brought home since the Harfords’ son.”

“Tommy?” Merlin asks, curling his hands around the mug. “That doesn’t count, we were _five_.”

His mum arches her eyebrows, sipping from her own mug, and Merlin is forced to admit that he’d walked full on into that one. He takes a gulp of milk before remembering that it’s too hot to do that, but his mother still knows him too well: it’s cool enough that he doesn’t scald himself. “Arthur is,” he starts, and pauses. “The others... no one was worth it before.” 

His mum reaches over, brushing a thumb across his cheek. “I’m glad this one is,” she says.

“Me too,” Merlin says, and has to take another hasty gulp to keep himself from doing something embarrassing.

She goes to bed first, pressing a kiss to his hair before disappearing into her bedroom, and Merlin puts the mugs in the sink before turning out all the lights. He takes his time in the bathroom, turning over the toothbrush he’d packed in a rush that morning, shouting down the corridors of Arthur’s house that they were late, fuck, they were going to miss the train if Arthur didn’t _hurry up_ , he wasn’t actually royalty and the train wouldn’t wait for him. It’s incongruous here, out of place in the mirror he’d stared into every morning growing up, squinting close to see if his acne had disappeared or the fuzz on his face had transformed overnight into a beard, inspecting every change in himself as his knees and elbows grew out of control and his voice cracked embarrassingly. 

He hadn’t peeked into the front room to check on Arthur; thinking of Arthur here feels too much like sand shifting under his feet. Arthur is a frustrating, terrible arse of a self-important man and Merlin swears he’s done with him twice a month, but having him here feels like family, and Merlin isn’t sure yet what he thinks of that.

“Not the time,” he tells his reflection sternly, and flosses with a little extra vigour.

It’s still easy for him to find his room in the dark, feeling his way around the corner and closing the door behind him. He shrugs out of his clothes and drops them on the floor with a sigh before crawling into bed, ready and willing to let sleep erase all his thoughts for the next few hours.

Someone is already in his bed.

Arthur has a hand over Merlin’s mouth before Merlin can yell out. “It’s just me,” he hisses, and Merlin tries to bite him, collapsing onto the mattress as the fright fades. 

“You’re a fucking menace,” Merlin whispers when Arthur takes his hand away.

“Were you scared?” Arthur asks, because he is a psychopath bent on Merlin’s destruction. “Who else would it be? Do you regularly have strangers turning up in your childhood bed?”

Merlin intentionally knees Arthur in the stomach as he crawls under the blankets. “Why are you so charming with my mother and a prat to me?” 

“Your mother cooks better. She’s nicer, too.”

“Git,” Merlin says, and tries to elbow Arthur out of bed.

“Ow, Merlin!”

“The bed’s too small, genius; we don’t both fit.”

“I was here first.”

“It’s my bed!”

“Fine, come on,” Arthur says, coaxing now, and Merlin immediately wraps his arms around himself, sure that Arthur is about to break all the rules of civilised combat and start tickling. “We can fit, just turn this way—” Merlin grudgingly gives way to Arthur’s prodding, still wary, but Arthur only arranges them so that they’re spooning, Merlin tucked close enough to Arthur that he can feel Arthur’s breath soft on the back of his neck.

 _Oh_ , thinks Merlin.

“You’ll have to go back before my mum wakes up,” he says, trying hard to keep up the pretence of irritation, but it’s hard when he’s so suddenly sleepy, and Arthur is welcome warmth against the cold. 

Arthur grumbles an answer into Merlin’s shoulder, and says, “There are a lot of pictures in your house.”

There are, in fact, a lot of pictures around, mostly of Merlin in his most awkward stages of development, which was all of them. Merlin periodically tries to hide the worst offenders away, but his mum always finds them and puts them back up. 

“Mum says she likes having them around.”

Arthur’s silent. Merlin pushes his head deeper into the pillow and tucks the blankets more securely around them, settling in.

“She really loves you, doesn’t she?” Arthur says, soft. “Your mum. Even though you fight with her, she loves you.”

“Yeah,” says Merlin, yawning, half-asleep already. “I suppose she does.”

Arthur doesn’t say anything more, and Merlin tucks his cold feet between Arthur’s warm ones before falling asleep.

They spend Christmas Eve watching the storm rage outside, switching from rain to snow often enough that anyone foolish enough to venture out is almost certainly risking a broken neck on the ice. Arthur lets Merlin curl up around him on the sofa while they watch _Love Actually_ , which is the only movie in the house, and they argue over which is the best storyline while Merlin’s mum feeds them at regular intervals.

“I like the one with the actors,” Arthur says, chewing thoughtfully. “They’re very sweet.”

“You just like them because there’s nudity,” Merlin accuses. “I like Colin Firth’s story.”

“You’re in love with Colin Firth,” says Arthur. “You’re biased.”

Merlin steals the last sandwich half before Arthur can grab it. “I am not; I like Hugh Grant, too.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, and kisses Merlin while Merlin’s mum isn’t looking. 

That’s the only downside to having Arthur visit his mum’s house, Merlin discovers that night when Arthur crawls into his bed again after Merlin’s mum has shut her door. 

“No,” he tells Arthur severely, when Arthur tries to slide his hand down to Merlin’s crotch. “Did you live in this house growing up? Do you know how thin these walls are? No, you do not. We are not having sex in my mother’s house.”

“Not even a little bit?” Arthur asks, skating his fingers over one of Merlin’s nipples, which is just not fair. “Just a _little_ bit, Merlin, please, I’ll be so quiet when I suck you off—”

His libido is screaming at him, but Merlin says no, and threatens to go sleep on the fold-away himself when Arthur licks his ear, because he still remembers the day he found out his mother could hear him every time he’d had a quiet wank, and there are some things people should never, ever know about their nearest and dearest.

Christmas brings presents and a roast that’s been driving Merlin mad all day as it cooks and the Queen on the telly, and Arthur tries five times to trick Merlin into sex.

“You are deranged,” Merlin tells him after Arthur pretends to have something in his eye which requires Merlin’s immediate attention in the bathroom. Arthur pouts. “No, really,” Merlin says. “There’s something wrong with your brain; you should have it scanned.”

“Come on, Merlin,” Arthur says. Merlin purses his lips, because whining is not an attractive thing for a grown man to do, and Merlin will not allow himself give in to it.

“You can wait two more days,” says Merlin. “I promise your cock will not fall off. My mother is a doctor; I know these things.”

Arthur sighs, and fixes Merlin with his most innocent expression. “But I never had the chance for naughty schoolboy antics at home. I feel like I am missing out on one of life’s great experiences.”

“So am I,” Merlin says. “No.”

Arthur kisses him anyway, and Merlin lets him. There’s only so much he can allow himself to resist, and Arthur has always been more than his limits can contain.

Hunith tries to make them stay for New Year’s, but Arthur gallantly declines. “We couldn’t possibly intrude on your hospitality any further,” he tells her while he and Merlin are waiting at the front door for the taxi Arthur had called while Merlin had been distracted by breakfast.

“It’s no trouble,” she says, straightening the front of Arthur’s double-breasted jacket. “But I suppose you boys will want to celebrate on your own, after all.” 

Merlin’s cheeks heat at that, enough that he’s glad the taxi has pulled up—a smooth, shining black limo, the sort of car Merlin hadn’t though existed within fifty kilometres at least and which Arthur must have conjured out of a pumpkin somewhere—so he can blame the flush on the cold air as they step outside.

“I’ve packed you a few things,” his mother says when he hugs her, which means Merlin will find every spare corner of their luggage filled with most of the Christmas leftovers when he opens his bag.

“Thanks, Mum,” he says, and lets her squeeze his ribs as tightly as she wants. 

“Thank you for everything, Hunith,” Arthur says formally, offering his hand, but Merlin’s mum shakes her head and uses it to pull him into a hug instead.

“This door is always open to you,” she tells Arthur, patting him on the back before stepping away. Arthur looks a little dazed, but he shakes himself out of it quickly.

“I—thank you,” he says again. “Ready, Merlin?”

The cab driver is wearing a _uniform_ when he gets out to help them with the bags, and if Merlin hadn’t already had suspicions, that would have done it.

The driver opens and closes the door for them, and the interior of the car is all black leather, soft and unblemished. “Alright,” Merlin says while they pick up speed—the engine is _soundless_ , what is this car?—“where are you kidnapping me to, then?”

“Kidnapping?” Arthur looks wounded. “I would never.”

“Surprise and no doubt romantic adventure, then, whatever.”

Arthur only smiles, looking unbearably smug. “You’ll see.”

Merlin doesn’t see when they arrive at the airport, because apparently Arthur is too special to have to stand in line for anything, even a ticket, and he doesn’t see when they’re waiting to board, because they don’t _have_ to wait; they go from security to a swanky private lounge to the tarmac, where annoyingly obsequious people lead them to a private plane.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, feeling faint because there is wealthy and then there is _owning your own plane_ wealthy. “Tell me this plane isn’t yours.”

“Um,” Arthur says, pulling his lips in tight over his teeth and sending a shifty look at Merlin. “It’s not mine?”

“This explains so much,” says Merlin, flopping down into one of the seats—more leather, cream-coloured, with enough room Merlin figures three of him could sit in it—and throwing an arm over his face in despair. “Really, so much is becoming clearer about you by the minute.”

Arthur makes a sad noise, but Merlin’s heart is made of stone, and he keeps his eyes resolutely closed, at least through take-off.

“I’m still the same Arthur you met and fell deeply, madly, arse-over-teakettle for?” Arthur tries, and Merlin snorts.

“Yeah, that much was pretty clear,” he mutters, but he’s looking out the window now, watching the ground fall away below with something suspiciously like delight, and he’ll admit that flying in Arthur’s private plane is infinitely preferable to flying with his knees jammed around his ears while toddlers kick the back of his seat. 

It’s still half an hour before he admits that to Arthur, and fifteen more before Arthur wheedles him into agreeing that he probably is, just a little, arse-over-teakettle where Arthur is concerned. When Merlin gets carried away and tries to kiss him, because they’re free of the house Merlin grew up in, free of thin walls and embarrassing memories and Merlin’s always been a little intrigued by the concept of a mile-high club, but apparently it’s Arthur’s turn to stop them. 

“We can wait a little longer,” he says, and Merlin wants to say no, they can _not_ wait longer, he is straddling Arthur’s lap with his hands buried in Arthur’s hair and he hasn’t had an orgasm in far too long, but Arthur is firm—and in none of the fun ways which count. “It’s my turn for a present; I want everything to be perfect. Getting semen on my leather upholstery is not perfect.”

“Freakish controlling bastard,” Merlin grumbles, but he suspects it comes out sounding too fond to have much effect. 

Arthur tries to be sneaky, but Merlin has his number the moment he realises all the signs are in French. Still, he keeps his mouth shut, and lets Arthur blindfold him for the last fifteen minutes of the drive, though he’d recognised some of the things on the way from the last time he’d passed this way—in January, when it had been Gwen behind the wheel, and Lance had been misreading maps on purpose to send them three hours in the wrong direction because he wanted to see more of France. 

He doesn’t have the heart to let Arthur know he knows, so when Arthur loosens the tie he’d put carefully around Merlin’s eyes and waits, beaming, for Merlin’s reaction, Merlin pulls him in and kisses him, grabbing Arthur’s elbows and holding him still so Merlin can lick the smugness and apprehension out of every corner of his mouth.

The sun’s been gone for an hour, though, and the wind is rising eerily through the pines, so they leave everything in the car and head for the cabin, the path clearly shovelled recently though Arthur hasn’t been to Camelot in a month, as far as Merlin knows. 

“You have an army of minions take care of this place when you’re not here, don’t you?” Merlin asks. Arthur grins.

“Tiny elves. They’re quite good at repairing shoes, too.”

“You’ve been ruined for life,” Merlin sighs. “Are you going to make me climb up and break in again? Because if you are I should tell you I’ve rewritten my will so that you won’t receive a single thing.”

“As if you’d have anything to leave,” says Arthur, pulling out a ring of keys. “I’ll spare you this time; it’s too damned cold.”

It’s only slightly less freezing inside, and Merlin huddles close to Arthur while Arthur lights the fire with casual competence.

“You’re good at that,” Merlin comments, resting his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur makes a distracted, noncommittal noise, poking another bit of bark into the fire. “I mean, really good,” Merlin says, pressing closer. Arthur hums again. “Arthur.”

“Yep,” Arthur mutters, and Merlin’s about to give up entirely and sulk somewhere with the Swiss chocolate he knows Arthur must have stashed away in the kitchen—probably next to the sink or in the freezer, which is where he keeps it in his Mayfair house—when the wood finally catches and Arthur twists around to catch him by the wrists.

“I could teach you how, if you want,” he offers Merlin. “It’s not difficult.”

“I like watching you better,” Merlin says, catching his lower lip between his teeth in a ridiculous ploy which nevertheless works wonders. Arthur has him naked in seconds, laid out right there on the rug while Arthur performs miracles on his cock; Merlin moans and thrashes and nearly sets the whole place on fire, and after, when their skin has cooled, Merlin steals Arthur’s jumper.

“Oi, that’s mine,” Arthur protests. “It was a gift.”

“You have too many jumpers,” Merlin says sleepily. “I’m cold. And you like to see me in your clothes, you told me so.”

“Sex confessions do not count.”

“Do too,” says Merlin, and rolls so he can trap Arthur’s arm under his own head. He drapes an lazy arm over Arthur’s belly and plays with a few threads which are poking out of the rug. “To make this truly cliché, this should be bearskin, you know. Maybe tiger.”

“Dear God,” Arthur says, sounding physically ill. “ _No_.”

“Why not?” Merlin asks cheerfully. “It would lend a certain je ne sais quoi to the place—”

“Christ, shut up,” says Arthur, and rolls them over for another round. 

*

They spend days cocooned in snow and each other and fully explore all possibilities with the Jacuzzi despite Merlin not having brought a bathing suit—Arthur makes him go in nude, and says it’s an improvement. Merlin accuses him of being a dirty exhibitionist. Arthur points out that there’s no one around to see except possibly foxes or deer, and distracts Merlin with a truly inspired twist of his fingers before Merlin can object further. The temperature never seems to climb above zero and while the Jacuzzi is warm the air around it is fucking freezing, so although Arthur magically procures a trail pass for Merlin they don’t go out much. 

Arthur has a beat-up snowboard hidden behind ten pairs of shaped skis in varying lengths and telemark equipment, and they take turns on it, using it as a sled down the trail in front of the cabin since they don’t have boots to go with it and the ones Merlin’s rented—that Arthur’s rented for Merlin—don’t fit the bindings. Once, Arthur tries standing on it, and teeters for a few moments before falling on his arse.

“Look at the famous skier now,” Merlin laughs. Arthur throws a snowball at him.

“Skiing is completely different from snowboarding,” he says, and when Merlin very maturely sticks out his tongue, Arthur tackles him around the middle into the three feet of fluffy powder that’s built up around the cabin. Merlin gets snow down the back of his neck, but he shoves a snowball down the front of Arthur’s jacket, so he’s happy to call it even. 

Later, after they’ve trooped back inside to change and wrinkle the blankets on Arthur’s bed again, Arthur disappears for a few minutes while Merlin dozes. Merlin doesn’t really pay attention, busy savouring the blissful emptiness following orgasm, until Arthur crawls back under the sheets and sticks his cold hands on Merlin’s ribs. Merlin flails, swearing, and elbows Arthur in the gut half by accident and half on purpose, because cold hands are a low blow by any measure, and Arthur is _laughing_.

“I called Owaine,” Arthur says, blithely ignoring all of Merlin’s imprecations. “He gives snowboard lessons here; I thought we could take private lessons.”

Merlin’s finally settled again, comfortably huddled under the weight of seven blankets. “Really?”

“He’s only open on New Year’s Day—it’s a holiday for him, technically, but it’s his only day with a free slot and he owes me a favour. I thought I’d give you a chance to make fun of me properly.”

 

“ _Really_?”

“Really truly.”

“You are a brave soul, Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin says, solemn, and lets Arthur steal a few of the blankets back. “I will be merciless.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” says Arthur, tangling himself hopelessly in the blankets and Merlin, already sounding half-asleep.

Merlin closes his own eyes, and wonders if it’s possible to actually die from happiness.

*

They’re in the village at the foot of the mountain, halfway through a bottle of wine which costs more than Merlin makes in a month, when the dream evaporates. They’re probably underdressed for the restaurant—they’d barely taken time for a shower before Arthur had hustled Merlin into the BMW and driven them down, five minutes late for their reservation. Merlin hadn’t really wanted to go—he’d rather spend New Year’s Eve with just the two of them, alone in Arthur’s house with the fire roaring—but Arthur had insisted that the village was the best place to watch the fireworks, and Merlin has a definite weakness for when Arthur gets excited about anything. Merlin’s not sure Arthur actually knows about it yet, which means that Merlin can still give in to it whenever he wants.

Merlin’s wearing Arthur’s cashmere jumper and his own rented snowboard boots because they’re the warmest shoes he has. He’s stuck his feet out into the space beside their table, which he’s sure is a terrible faux pas, but he doesn’t care: he’s had enough wine to feel pleasantly tipsy, and he’s too busy feeling fond watching Arthur use everything within reach to illustrate the proper approach to a hairpin as opposed to a flush to think about anything else.

“...technically only your tips and your feet have to pass between the gates,” Arthur is explaining, and Merlin squints at the soup spoon Arthur’s pushing between the salt shaker and the frosted glass of the tiny candle. “If you look at the vertical offset and the angles, it means—”

There’s a quiet cough beside them. Merlin ignores it at first, too focused on watching the brightness dancing in Arthur’s eyes. Arthur does look up, though, and his face turns immediately, horribly blank.

“Father,” he says, every scrap of emotion vanished, and Merlin turns to see Uther Pendragon, dressed in an immaculately tailored suit, his expression stern and pinched around the corners of his mouth, as if he’s caught a whiff of something dead. The handkerchief folded in the breast pocket of his jacket matches his tie.

“Arthur,” Uther says. His voice is quiet, a tiny bit gravelly around the edges, as if he’s used to yelling over the mountain wind. “When you told me you planned to take the week to rest your knee, this—” he pauses, just long enough to let his eyes skate once, briefly, over Merlin, lingering on the jumper and the boots, “—is not exactly what I had imagined.” 

Merlin pulls his feet under the table, sitting up straighter automatically. He’s heard Arthur on the phone with his father before, but this is the first time he’s seen Uther since the first time he watched Arthur race. Uther in reality is worse than Merlin had imagined: there’s a coldness which hangs around him, a commanding righteousness tinged with condescension, and Merlin almost feels that Uther could order him beheaded, like a king.

Arthur sits, silent. Merlin wonders if it’s shock; he’s never seen Arthur so still.

“Your knee?” Uther inquires, and it could almost be an innocent question, if it weren’t for the flint in his jaw. “I trust you have not... reinjured it in any way?”

“No,” says Arthur, and Merlin knows him well enough to catch the tightness in his voice.

Uther studies him. “Have you been to see Vivian?”

“No,” Arthur says. “I don’t have an appointment until next week.”

“Still, we wouldn’t want to take any risks, so close to the Championship...”

“Of course,” Arthur agrees. “I’ll see if she can fit me in earlier—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Uther interrupts. “I’m taking no chances with your knee, and she’ll give me a truthful assessment. We wouldn’t want to force you to race if you aren’t ready.”

Arthur stiffens; Merlin watches his knuckles grow white where they’re still wrapped around his soup spoon.”I’m ready,” Arthur says. “Father, you _know_ I’m ready. I raced all last year without a problem—”

“This race is more important than any of the ones last year,” Uther says sharply. “You know that, Arthur. And I know you’ve been skimping on your physical therapy the last few months. Vivian told me you missed appointments.”

“We rescheduled them, that’s all, I never—”

“Arthur.” Uther’s entire being is focused on Arthur now, as if he’s long forgotten Merlin’s existence. “You are missing practices, missing appointments. I find you associating with layabouts and degenerates. The Championship is a direct step to the Olympic trials, and I will not allow you to become distracted. You will not shame me.”

Arthur bows his head, and that’s it, Merlin thinks, furious; he can’t sit here and watch Arthur fucking take this without a fight, wait while Uther walks all over Arthur when Arthur doesn’t allow _anyone_ to get the better of him.

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Merlin starts, pushing back his chair. “I don’t think it’s your place—”

“Merlin,” Arthur interrupts, curt. “Shut up.”

It’s a bullet to his spinal column; as if he’s fallen into icy water and been paralyzed from the shock of it. Uther’s talking again, but Merlin doesn’t bother paying attention. He should be angrier, he thinks, but all he can manage is a discouraging emptiness. Here in front of him is the Arthur he thought he’d disproved long ago, the arrogant, callous man he’d thought had been the fake one, and it turns out to have been the real Arthur all along.

“Don’t exaggerate,” Arthur’s saying when Merlin starts paying attention again. “Merlin’s a friend, that’s all.”

 _Friend_ , Merlin thinks, and feels his new bitterness grow, taking shape.

“I expect to see you in the morning,” Uther says, crisp, all but ignoring Arthur’s words. “My office.”

Arthur doesn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir.”

Merlin isn’t prepared for the revulsion he feels, the way it hits him in the face and all his most vulnerable parts. The old adage is true, after all: actions speak louder than words, and Arthur’s made it impossibly, inescapably clear where Merlin stands in his eyes, how easy it is to push Merlin to one side—a clue to how easy it might be for Arthur to throw Merlin off entirely.

After Uther leaves, they sit staring at the ruins of their half-finished meal until Arthur folds his napkins and places it on the table, squaring the corners. “Let’s go.”

Merlin walks out to the car while Arthur pays, more willing to face the wind than more of Arthur’s silence. He’s hoping the cold will help him clear his head, cleanse away the scum of the poison building up, and it does, for a few minutes while he shifts his feet, his chin buried deep in his scarf, until Arthur walks out to join him. 

The ride to Arthur’s house seems infinitely longer than it had on the way into town. There are still hours to go before midnight, but neither of them mentions watching the fireworks. They don’t speak much at all, listening to French pop on the radio instead; Merlin only tries to break the silence once.

“Merlin,” Arthur interrupts before Merlin has a chance to say more than a few words. “Leave it. At least wait until we’re in the house.” He sounds tired, worn thin, and Merlin lets him have it: the synthesised guitars on the radio and the dark pines rushing by outside.

Arthur disappears into the tiny room he uses as his office as soon as they’re back, and Merlin lets him have that, too. Merlin brushes his teeth and stares in the mirror and thinks about being a secret instead of thinking about Uther, because thinking about Uther directly scares him: he doesn’t know where it’ll lead. It isn’t the first time he’s been a secret, but he’d never thought about it in relation to Arthur. Arthur’s met everyone Merlin cares about, but they operate in different worlds. With the exception of Morgana, Merlin’s never met any of Arthur’s friends other than Leon, who Merlin had met through Gwen and Lance. Even Morgana hadn’t been Arthur’s idea: she’d all but forced him to introduce her to Merlin. Merlin’s always assumed Arthur was a sorry bastard who didn’t have many friends because he was always working, but he’s never considered Arthur might be _hiding_ their relationship. The thought sits sour on Merlin’s tongue. 

He lingers long enough that the sour taste turns acid before going looking for Arthur, who’s bent over his desk with only one tiny light on, hands buried in his hair. Merlin itches to go over and put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders to work the tension out of them, but he holds himself in tightly, folding his fingers into his armpits.

“So,” he says. “Are you just going to hide in here, or are we going to talk about this?”

Arthur half turns to look at Merlin, which throws his face into shadow. “I don’t see what there is to discuss.”

Merlin can’t think of the words to tell Arthur how dirty he feels, how used, and so he settles for something simpler instead. “You could start with our plans for tomorrow,” he suggests.

“We’ll move them, we still have time; I’ll call Owaine and he can swap us to another day.”

Merlin shakes his head, because Arthur doesn’t understand. “I don’t think we have time, Arthur.”

“What? You told me you have all twelve days of Christmas off, that you don’t have to work until after the sixth. Did Gaius call?”

“No,” Merlin says, breathing slowly through his nose. “Gaius didn’t call. I’m talking about _us_ , Arthur.”

“Us.” Arthur cuts the word short before the hiss of it grows, and lays one hand gently down on the ergonomic curve of his leather office chair. “That’s as useful as mud, Merlin; what do you mean?”

“I mean,” Merlin says, struggling to keep his voice level, “that you can’t just blow me off like this every time someone says jump. I thought we were past all of that, Arthur.”

Arthur scrubs at his face. “My father,” he starts, and changes his mind. “You know I don’t have the best relationship with him. I’m asking you to understand, Merlin. I can’t change everything overnight.”

“Understand what? That you’d rather let him walk all over you than stick up for yourself?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It’s my fucking business when I’m involved!” Merlin knows he should be better than this, above this, but it feels so good to shout at Arthur, to yell when everything inside him is a screaming mess. “It’s my business when your father insults me to my face and you don’t do a thing to contradict him.”

Arthur’s brow furrows. “Insults you?”

“Don’t play the idiot,” Merlin snaps. “Your father shouldn’t run your life, and that includes who you fuck—who cares if you’re out, experimenting, or in the closet; there’s no fucking way it’s any part of his business.”

“You think that was about us _sleeping together_?” Arthur asks, incredulous. “Merlin—”

“Don’t _Merlin_ me.”

“My father cared more about your boots than who you sleep with. You’re a degenerate for being a snowboarder, not because you’re gay. He doesn’t give a damn about that.” Arthur gives a short, barking laugh. “My father is old-fashioned in strange ways.”

It’s clear he means for it to be a joke, a way to dissolve some of the tension, but Merlin’s in no mood for it. He turns his back on Arthur and walks away.

Arthur follows him into the hall. “Merlin...”

“I can’t this anymore,” Merlin says, keeping his voice clipped so that he doesn’t explode in a mess they’ll never be able to scrub out of these walls. 

He should have known that would only make Arthur mean. “You’re not the most important thing in my life, you know,” he says to Merlin’s back, and Merlin’s too busy fighting down the feeling of being gut-punched to notice how much louder, less-controlled, Arthur’s voice has become.

“Oh good,” Merlin says, wheeling around, his false brightness dripping venom. “It’s so good to know where I stand with you, Arthur. I’m so _sorry_ for not staying your dirty little secret; it must have been so much more fun while no one knew about the sorry little snowboarder who fell into your arms and followed you home for a good fuck. It must have been so easy to lure me in once you decided to pay attention to me: explain all my doubts away until you could do anything you wanted with me—”

“That’s not right and you know it—”

“But now Daddy’s found out; someone knows and it isn’t fun anymore, is that it, Arthur?”

“Like hell it is,” Arthur says. His face is red, his brows dangerous. “But if we’re going to play that game, we could talk about your motives, too, starting from the minute I met you—tell me, was it all a set-up? You saw me and figured you’d take a chance, see if you could get your hands on the Pendragon son, the Pendragon accounts?”

“There you go again,” Merlin shoots back, focusing despite the jackhammer in his chest that’s sending his blood pressure through the roof at Arthur’s outrageous claims. “You’re more than a _son_ , Arthur; or are you going to let your father run your life for you forever?”

Merlin’s never seen Arthur this angry, this close to losing total control. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Arthur says. “You don’t even _have_ a father.”

That sends Merlin reeling. “What does it matter?” he says, vicious. “I’m starting to believe the rumours; Christ, Arthur, look at your life—look at that crash. It isn’t so hard to believe your father’s going to kill you, just because _his_ injuries put him out of an Olympic medal; he’s still living the dream through you, and he’ll never stop until you end up just like him.”

Arthur’s frozen with rage, and Merlin almost feels remorse. Almost. 

“Get out.”

“I wonder if you even have a spine,” Merlin continues, “or if you’ll keep blindly following him until the tree at the end of the fall actually kills you.”

“Get out of my house,” Arthur says again, and Merlin is ready for that, ready to never see Arthur again as long as he lives.

“Gladly,” Merlin snaps. “This was all a mistake from the start.”

They glare at each other, caught up in rage and twisted hurt, until Merlin realises with a wrench that there’s no way he can go anywhere tonight unless Arthur takes him.

Arthur must read the thought in his face. “Find your own way out,” he says, the fire he’d been spitting hidden behind a cool mask, and turns to climb the stairs. Merlin hears the bedroom door shut.

The options aren’t attractive. Merlin has no idea how to hotwire a car, and the keys to the BMW are still in Arthur’s pocket. The village is too far to walk unless he wants to end his holiday with a spot of severe hypothermia, and there’s nothing but forest around Arthur’s house; no one else lives anywhere nearby. At first Merlin prowls around, poking through Arthur’s office in the hopes of finding a spare set of car keys, but all he finds are some paracetamol tablets and a package of fossilised raisins. He ends up on the sofa, in the end, staring angrily at the dark fireplace and counting all the ways he hates Arthur until he falls into fitful, unintentional sleep. 

In the morning, Arthur is already gone, the bedroom door open. Merlin finds the number for a taxi on the alphabetical list of useful and emergency numbers Arthur keeps on the door of the fridge, and calls for one before going up to pack his things. He doesn’t look at anything while he throws it into his bag—Arthur will just have to make do if Merlin accidentally takes anything that’s Arthur or leaves a dirty sock or two behind.

The taxi takes a long time to arrive, and while he waits, Merlin considers the merits of setting the whole place on fire. He figures Arthur would be a bastard and press charges, though, so in the end he only drags the key to his flat down the driver’s side of Arthur’s shiny car and goes out to sit meekly in the taxi while it drives him away.

Between the taxi and finding a way to the airport—a mess of buses and missed trains and hitch-hiking in a snowstorm—and the fee to book his flight last minute, it’s almost more than Merlin can afford to spend; another thing he’s chalking up against Arthur the Bastard, one more on a long list of crimes that make Merlin want to scream and throw things and have a tantrum in the middle of a crowd of well-dressed Frenchmen and women when the departures board changes to show his flight has a three-hour delay, and another six-hour delay after that.

“Oh my God,” Freya says when he walks into the flat more than thirty hours after leaving Arthur’s house. It’s confirmation that he looks just as shitty as he feels. “What happened?” she asks, taking his bag and shepherding him to the chair she’d been sitting in.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Merlin says, because he doesn’t, not ever, and Freya—blessed Freya, lovely Freya, Merlin will never say a bad word about her again—doesn’t push. She fixes him a cuppa and pats him awkwardly on the shoulder a few times, and then she curls up with her book and lets him breathe.

“Will’s due back by seven,” she says when Merlin’s finished the tea and broken the biscuits she’d set in front of him into a pile of crumbs. The weight that had slid off for a few minutes resettles itself on Merlin’s chest. 

“I don’t really want to talk to anyone,” Merlin says, too exhausted to be anything but blunt; Will, when he finds out, will be loud and angry and shout curses, demanding to know what Merlin ever saw in Arthur to begin with, and Merlin doesn’t want to have that conversation. All he wants to do is curl up somewhere dark and close and sleep forever.

“Go close your door,” Freya tells him. “You look terrible; go sleep. I’ll take care of it.”

Merlin feels as if he’s been cut down from his strings; he doesn’t have the strength to thank her. He drags himself down the hall and crawls into bed, burying his head in his pillow. Later, he hears Will come home, hears the shouting; later still there’s a gentle warmth that settles at his side: Baron leans her head against him and rasps her buzzing purr, and Merlin finally slides sideways into dreamless sleep.

*

Gwen visits them after a few days, ostensibly for a cooking date with Freya while Lance is out of town saving something abroad—possibly the Cambodian rainforest; Merlin wasn’t paying attention—but Freya must have spoken to her: she doesn’t say a word about Arthur. She fusses with Merlin’s hair while they watch _Hotter Than My Daughter_ , Freya muttering abusive commentary about the show in the background, and feeds him biscuits, and Merlin leans against her, fiercely glad to have her there.

He doesn’t cry, though he tries, once or twice, to see if that might break whatever is holding him trapped like a fly in glass: distant, separated from the rest of the world. Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons when there’s no one else home or after particularly awful days at the shop, Merlin’s allergies to Baron act up. On those days he has to breathe deeply and concentrate on the banality of breakfast cereal or washing powder until the moment passes. 

He’d run off with Arthur’s jumper by accident; he’d never taken it off or even thought about it until after he was home and wondering why it didn’t look like it fit in with the rest of his things. He thinks about sending it back, but he never quite gets around to it, and there’s a churlish thought lurking in his mind that he needs it more than Arthur does—Uther can go right out and buy Arthur another one if he wants to. Merlin doesn’t think about that much, though: mostly he tries not to think about Arthur at all. Arthur isn’t an easy thing to eradicate, he’s like a weed that’s taken root somewhere in Merlin’s chest and thrown out tendrils everywhere, wrapping vines and leaves tight around all of Merlin’s most important bits. Once, he sees a woman on the Tube with a bag that looks like an enormous stuffed cat, and he already has his phone out to text Arthur before he remembers. When he gets home, he picks out some of the ugly mustard-yellow plates they never use—they’d been a drunken folly of Will’s during uni—and tries breaking them one by one, smashing them against the floor in the hope that it will make him feel better, but it doesn’t work very well. The dishes are crap, and it isn’t nearly as fun or cathartic as it looks in the cinema; in the end it only makes him tired and more pissed off and leaves him with a mess to clean up.

It rains a lot that month, and part of Merlin is viciously glad the weather is making other people miserable too. He feels as if he’s been wrapped up in cotton, fuzzy around the edges. Gwen is worried about him, Freya and Will too, but he’s _fine_ , everything is fine. They don’t press him for details, but he knows they’re talking about it, discussing him in low, worried voices when he’s not around to hear, so when Gwaine texts him a quick hello, Merlin jumps at the chance.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Freya asks, watching him hunt for his shoes, which Baron has dragged off somewhere again. 

“It’s one drink between friends,” Merlin says, finding his left shoe underneath the bookshelf where Freya stores her cookbooks and the collected works of Thích Nhất Hạnh, and Will keeps the collected _Battlestar Galactica_ and every Sylvester Stallone movie ever made. Dickens has been collecting dust on the bottom shelf among the Lord of the Rings collector’s edition figurines Merlin swears aren’t his; he sneezes and thinks he should probably get around to finally donating _Bleak House_ to someone who will actually read it. “We’re just catching up.”

Freya doesn’t reply except for making doubtful noises and eyeing Merlin carefully, and Merlin just as carefully ignores her until he’s safely out of the flat.

The drink turns into three, but it’s quiet, friendly. Gwaine doesn’t talk much about Elena, but he doesn’t need to, not after Merlin sees the look on Gwaine’s face when he says her name. It doesn’t sting as much as Merlin thought it would.

“So, this bloke who has you all twisted up,” Gwaine says at last, four pints in and eating a handful of peanuts one by one, apparently unaware that the bartender and the three women who have been huddled around the far corner of the bar all evening are sending him clear and covetous looks. “He the fit blond you had in tow last I saw you?”

The pleasant buzz Merlin’s worked up cushions most of the blow, but it turns a little sour. “That ended.”

Gwaine snorts, and pops another nut in his mouth. “Yeah, and believe me, mate, you’ve never looked better.”

Merlin scowls.

“Just wondering,” Gwaine says. “Wondering if maybe you thought he was the one.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. You and me, we had fun, yeah? But we never thought further than that.” Merlin thinks about arguing, just to give Gwaine a hard time, but he’s had enough to blur the edges of his thoughts and besides, it’s true. “This bloke,” Gwaine continues, using a peanut to point at Merlin, “I think he was more than that.”

“So what if he was?” Merlin says, shrugging. “It’s over. That’s that.”

Gwaine chucks the peanut at his head. Merlin ducks, but it hits him anyway. “Christ, you’re an idiot,” Gwaine tells him. “Answer the bloody question.”

Merlin looks down at the wood of the bar instead, traces his finger over the sticky film left by hundreds of spilt drinks and sloppy drunks who were here before him. He doesn’t want to answer the question. He doesn’t want to say that maybe he’s regretting the things he said to Arthur, but not enough to go crawling back. 

“Come on,” Gwaine says. “Just say it; it’s written all over your face anyway.”

“If it’s written there, you don’t need me to say it.”

“Merlin.”

Merlin sighs. “I don’t know,” he says, which is honest enough. “I thought he might be, but...” He lets the thought trail off, because he isn’t sure yet if he wants to add _it wasn’t worth it_.

“Well,” says Gwaine, sitting back and signalling the bartender for another round. “Sounds like you’d better find out then, doesn’t it?”

*


	8. Chapter 8

:::

_Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you_

:::

 

Four days after his drink with Gwaine, Gwen calls Merlin in tears, and for a horrible moment Merlin thinks something’s happened to Lancelot.

“No,” Gwen tells him when he asks, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “No, Lance is fine; he loves Laos so much I may have to give up all hope of a honeymoon anywhere else. Merlin, it’s Arthur.”

Something’s wrong with his ears, Merlin notices. Everything has gone sort of dim, and there’s a buzzing at the back of his skull. He takes the pasta he’d been heating off the hob to drain it. “Arthur,” he says, flat. It’s the first time he’s said the name since leaving France.

“He’s—oh, Merlin—there was an accident.”

Merlin drops his mobile. He doesn’t mean to, but the parts go skittering across the lino, broken after it slips from his fingers. It’s a cheap phone, always falling apart; he’s been meaning to buy a better one for years. Arthur had threatened to buy him an iPhone for his birthday.

There’s nothing but shitty mindless programmes on the telly, no news at all except for the latest celebrity scandals, so Merlin goes for his laptop and there it is on the BBC, a headline hidden halfway down the page: _English skiing star in critical condition after fall_. Merlin takes the pot of drained spaghetti and the laptop and shuts himself up in his room—common enough now for him to do that he’s sure neither Will nor Freya will bother him. 

The details are scarce. The BBC article is only a few lines long, and Merlin skims it quickly: Arthur Pendragon, British skiing phenomenon, it says; a crash that morning during a routine practice which left him in critical condition in a Paris hospital; representatives could not be contacted. Below the article there are links to old news, mostly about the first crash—Merlin ignores them. 

Google yields only piecemeal information, mostly about how Arthur had been a favourite to win the World Championship, the first British skier to lead the field. One article refers to Uther as Arthur’s “former” coach, and Merlin stares at that for a while before deciding it must be a typo. As the evening draws on there’s talk of intensive care, surgery; broken things and comas and percentages of chances for survival, and Merlin searches for any real information, anything more than hearsay, but he finds nothing. When his vision goes blurry, he sits back to eat his cold spaghetti and decides it must be an elaborate practical joke. He reaches for his reassembled phone.

“Hello, you’ve reached Arthur Pendragon. Please leave your name and a brief message after the beep.”

“Hello, you’ve reached Arthur—”

“Hello, you’ve—”

“Hello, you’ve reached Arthur Pendragon. Please leave your name and a brief message after the beep.”

“Arthur, you bastard, pick up your phone.”

“Hello, you’ve reached Arthur Pendragon. Please leave your name and a brief message after the beep.”

“Arthur. I’m serious. I will fucking kill you. I don’t care what game you’re playing, what hoax you’ve cooked up. You have my attention; isn’t that what you wanted? Pick up your fucking phone.”

“Hello, you’ve reached Arthur Pendragon. Please leave your name and a brief message after the beep.”

“Arthur, goddamn it. _Arthur_.”

By midnight there’s a video on YouTube. Merlin’s called Arthur’s phone twenty-three times and Morgana’s once, each time willing Arthur to pick up and confess the hoax, in which case Merlin will be fucking _furious_ , but too wrecked with relief to really mind. The video is shaky, amateur, but the skier is definitely Arthur, from his red jacket to his gold helmet and stupid mirrored goggles. People start screaming as Arthur goes down and keeps going, through orange fences and into the trees; there’s a man with a trembling voice saying _oh my god, oh my god_ over and over and Merlin feels sick every single time he watches it.

By dawn, Merlin’s cleaned out the rest of his savings to buy a one-way ticket to Charles de Gaulle, leaving that afternoon. Damn the expense, he thinks; damn the fact that maybe Arthur won’t want to see him when he wakes up— _if he ever wakes up_ , whispers some dark voice in his head, but Merlin’s ignoring that; Arthur’s going to wake up, has to wake up. He has to wake up because Merlin is going to kill him for being so careless, because Merlin’s just maybe realising that Arthur was imperfect and flawed and a bastard, but maybe... maybe Arthur was _right_ in all the ways that mattered.

Merlin leaves the flat without so much as a suitcase and slips out into the night which hasn’t yet begun to think about the morning, because at the moment being one more anonymous face waiting for hours at Heathrow seems infinitely more calming than pacing around among things which all remind him of Arthur. The trip itself is smooth, and it isn’t until he arrives in Paris that he realises how poorly he’d planned this idiotic excursion. 

When he arrives at the hospital—guessing at the right one from the name he half-remembers seeing in articles about Arthur’s first fall—he learns with his mangled French that he cannot see Arthur, that under no circumstances will he be allowed to see Arthur. He’s not family; not anything, anymore; he has no claim to Arthur now except the slowly twisting ache in his intestines. He sits down hard in one of the plastic chairs lining the waiting room and puts his head between his knees, breathing in the air which smells like years of assiduously applied disinfectant and hoping like hell he doesn’t vomit.

After eight hours of watching him pace in the waiting room the receptionists throw him out, telling him to go home because he hasn’t slept all night, but he stalks the corridors of the hospital instead, waylaying everyone he sees who might possibly be a health professional. He pretends to be Arthur’s cousin, which he admits is not one of his best ideas, and it doesn’t yield many results. One doctor tells him Arthur’s in surgery but won’t say anything more, escaping through doors which need a number code before Merlin can pump him for more information, so Merlin goes back to the lair he’s established on one of the upper floors. It’s near the children’s wing, and he thinks it’s a room for visiting families: it has a forced cheerfulness to it that feels almost sickening, and a very large part of Merlin wishes he had a marker so he could scribble over the jolly painted animals smiling down on him from the wall. There’s nothing to smile about, not for anyone here.

Still, there are reasonably comfortable chairs and no one tries to make him leave, so he stays there. He has no spare clothes, no food except a couple of cheap baguettes from the hospital canteen; he makes himself eat half of one and curls up in one of the chairs, drawing his knees up to his chest before draping his coat over himself. He gets up every few hours to refill his cup with terrible coffee from the carafe on the table, until it runs out and no one comes with more. After that he just burrows under his coat, dozing in fits and starts while the afternoon darkens again into night and the rhythms of the hospital slow to a quiet pulse.

There’s nowhere else for him to go, and he can’t shake the feeling that if he leaves the hospital something terrible will happen, so he stays, prowling down corridors and through doors which are clearly marked for medical personnel only and trying to eavesdrop on conversations, listening for Arthur’s name. He ignores the fact that he’s blowing his savings on something that might not be worth it. It _is_ worth it, he tells himself; it has to be.

The receptionists warm up to him after a few days, which Merlin puts down to the fact that he seems to inspire a universal mothering instinct in most women and also the fact that they don’t know he’s actually living in the hospital. They don’t have much to tell him, though: every day when he passes through they shake their heads and say _no change, monsieur_ and sometimes slip him a croissant from their own breakfast.

Merlin’s been wandering the hospital nearly a week when he sees Uther. Merlin has no idea where they’re keeping Arthur, no idea where to even start looking, so he walks just to stretch his legs. He’s grown accustomed to the idea that Arthur is so far removed while staying physically close, so when he looks up and sees Uther, looking like he’s slept about as much as Merlin has, the shock stops him in his tracks. 

It’s obvious Uther’s been waiting here as well, Merlin thinks, staring. The tie at Uther’s throat is knotted tight and the shoulders of his jacket are crisp, but there’s a soft wrinkledness in the fabric around his knees and elbows, and he’s wearing the same sallow look that hospitals give to everyone waiting for news that doesn’t come. Merlin wonders if Uther has a special VIP waiting room, with coffee that doesn’t run out and a tray of delicacies to pick at while he waits, but when he looks more closely at the pinched lines around Uther’s mouth he decides that even if Uther does have that room, it’s not doing him much more good than Merlin’s hideout.

Merlin’s expecting Uther to pass right by him without acknowledging him or maybe even recognising him, given that their only previous encounter was a brief but spectacular catastrophe in which Uther completely ignored him, and it’s true that Uther doesn’t so much as pause. But Uther meets Merlin’s eyes directly while he walks by, and gives a tiny, curt nod before continuing on down the corridor, his black suit stark among the colourful uniforms.

Merlin stands there long after Uther’s disappeared, leaning his back against the wall and trying to wrap his head around the puzzle Uther’s given him until a frantic beeping starts somewhere nearby. There’s a rush at the nurse’s station, all sorts of people in white coats yelling things Merlin doesn’t understand. He thinks about Uther, and the fact that Uther was here, that Arthur might be somewhere close, and Merlin is suddenly terrified, too fucking terrified to even move, because as long as he stays here, in this one spot, nothing bad can happen.

In the end he doesn’t have to move. They wheel the bed out of the room and take off down the corridor, blowing by Merlin in a flash, and all of the bones in his body melt at once when he realises that it’s a woman, that it isn’t Arthur pinned to the bed and gasping, his eyes rolling around in his bandaged head. 

Merlin doesn’t wander much after that, sticking to his hideout and the main waiting room, and he’s just resigned himself to waiting indefinitely until someone tells him that Arthur has left, gone one way or another, when Morgana finds him.

“Oh my God,” she says, catching him by the elbow as he passes. Her nails dig uncomfortably into his skin, and she calls him a lot of unflattering names before dragging him outside into the winter air. 

“No, Morgana, I—” Merlin starts, trying to wriggle away, but she was probably stronger than him even before he began living off of whatever he can scrounge from the staff lounges and the canteen.

“You are unshaven and underfed and a disgrace to humanity,” Morgana tells him, opening the passenger door of a dark red Maserati and shoving him inside. “You’re going home with me.”

Merlin resists, because the tiny voice which says nothing can happen as long as he’s _here_ , Arthur will be fine as long as Merlin’s around to watch things, and Morgana must see something in his face. She softens. “He’s not going anywhere, Merlin.”

It almost breaks him, these words and the gentleness in her voice. “Morgana—”

“I’m his emergency contact,” she says. “I’m the first one they’ll call.”

Merlin stares at the sleek dash as Morgana slides into the driver’s seat and pulls on thin leather gloves which fit to her skin perfectly. “Hold on,” she says, and Merlin grabs the door handle just in time for Morgana to accelerate into traffic without looking behind them, sliding neatly between two enormous lorries. Morgana on the road, apparently, is just like Arthur on the slopes: she takes any opportunity to edge ahead, weaving in and out of lanes, blithely ignoring traffic laws, police, and other drivers alike. Merlin keeps his eyes shut for most of the trip, hanging onto the handle for dear life, because after the first hair-raising minute, he decides it’s better not to know.

He has no idea where they end up, but it’s clearly the sort of posh neighbourhood they don’t let you into unless you come with an embarrassing amount of cash and a history of spending it. Morgana’s place has the same understated elegance as Arthur’s, though she favours a more artistic look, almost stark in its modernity: blacks and whites with here and there a splash of emerald green. The paintings on the walls are all geometric shames or naked women. Merlin swears one—a woman painted from behind, in muted colours—looks exactly like Gwen, and he tries not to stare too obviously while he tries to figure out if it really is. 

“Here,” Morgana says, shoving an enormous fluffy towel at him, making him jump. “Shower and shave—I’ve put out a toothbrush and a razor for you—and put on the clothes I left in the bathroom. I may have to burn your old ones to sterilise them.”

“Please don’t,” Merlin says. He’s wearing one of his favourite shirts, an old long-sleeved t-shirt that had been navy before time and too many washings faded the colour. It’s a little big for Merlin; Arthur had been fond of stealing it. 

Morgana eyes him. “Fine. Put them in a plastic bag so I can get them cleaned. After you’ve done that and eaten, I’ll tell you what I know.”

The bathroom is huge, luxurious—fitting, Merlin supposes, given the rest of the rooms. It’s easily bigger than Merlin’s flat, with huge mirrors and patterned tile and a tub Merlin has to climb down three steps to get to. He soaps himself down mechanically once he figures out the shower, as quickly as he can, and nicks himself shaving, trying to go too fast. Morgana’s left him a pair of slim, charcoal-grey trousers and a white button-up: they’re a little loose but at least they don’t fall off him entirely.

“Much better,” Morgana approves when Merlin emerges, looking him over critically. “Jean-Claude was a bit larger than you, but you’re taller. I’ll have better ones tomorrow, made to fit.” Merlin opens his mouth to protest, but she points to the low-backed sofa. “Sit. Eat.”

She’s set out plates of cheese and designer breads and a giant bowl of soup for him on a squat-legged table, and watches closely while he nibbles at a piece of sourdough before picking up a spoon. She’s sipping a frothy green concoction, and while Merlin blows on the soup to cool it a tiny black dog trots out from wherever it’s been hiding and scratches at the chair leg until she reaches down to pick it up. _Mordred_ , Merlin thinks as Morgana settles the dog in her lap, her manicured fingernails straightening its thin red leather collar. He wants to smile, but somewhere between his belly and his mouth the impulse turns to salt and dies in his throat.

The soup is good, rich and full of vegetables, but Merlin eats it slowly. He isn’t hungry; he’s only paying the required price for information.

“His spine isn’t broken,” Morgana starts abruptly, and Merlin almost slops a spoonful of tomato all down the front of his borrowed shirt in horror. He hadn’t even _thought_ of that, Christ. “They’ve mostly managed to repair his elbow. He’s not in a coma, but he’s unconscious most of the time; they say it’s better if he sleeps.”

Merlin carefully places the spoon in the bowl and the bowl on the glass-topped table, even though it’s still mostly full. “Have you seen him?”

“Once or twice. His condition is still delicate; they’re not keen on letting anyone in yet.”

Merlin sinks back, laying his head down on the back of the sofa. He knows Morgana’s watching him, analysing his every expression, but he doesn’t much care at the moment.

“He broke with Uther, you know,” she says—an idle comment, almost, but Merlin knows enough about Morgana to realise she never makes idle comment. “Found himself a new coach entirely. Caused quite a stir.”

“Why? Why the break, I mean.” Merlin can imagine the stir well enough.

“He wouldn’t say.” Morgana’s quiet after that. Merlin picks at the cheese, sniffing at a bit of brie and shuffling things around the plate. Arthur with a new coach—Arthur standing up to his father at last—Merlin thinks it should affect him more, but the most he can muster is a faded bitterness that Arthur hadn’t done it for Merlin, that Merlin had never been important enough.

Mordred shifts on Morgana’s lap, walking his front paws daintily forward until he’s lying down with them crossed under his chin, staring at Merlin. Merlin looks back until he realises he’s having a staring contest with a dog, and turns to the cheeses again.

“I know it’s related,” Morgana says when Merlin’s finally taken a bite of gouda. “Whatever happened with Uther and whatever happened between the two of you.” She pauses. “I know Arthur isn’t the easiest person to understand when Uther’s involved.”

“Nothing happened,” Merlin says, stiff, warm with the sudden defence of anger—none of what happened between him and Arthur is Morgana’s concern.

“I don’t need to know the details.” Morgana doesn’t look fazed in the least, leaning comfortably back in her chair, stroking Mordred with one hand. “But you should know that Arthur has been miserable since Christmas. He’s been unbearable, even by his usual standards.”

Her phone rings before Merlin can work himself up to a response, and Morgana slides Mordred off her lap to answer the call, greeting whoever’s on the other end warmly in French and walking out of the room. Merlin wonders if it’s Jean-Claude, whose clothes he’s wearing. He gives up on the food entirely, moving things around to make it look like he’s eaten something and offering a bit of cheese to Mordred. Mordred just sits in the chair Morgana had vacated, very still, staring at Merlin, and does not take the cheese.

“Fine,” Merlin mutters, and turns away from Mordred, picking at a bit of loose skin near his thumbnail. The pale wood of Morgana’s floor is warm under his feet, the sofa pleasantly yielding, but Merlin can’t get comfortable. He hasn’t thought much about their fight, about the way he and Arthur had parted; not since Arthur’s fall, anyway. It feels like he’s been dulled by the antiseptic air in the hospital, all the people around him living and dying and worrying, close to him and yet somehow not even in the same world, as if Merlin had only been floating invisible among them as they sat by or laid in sickbeds, all of them more intimate with suffering than he wants to be—he, Merlin, who doesn’t even know where the man he’s come to visit sleeps. Now the film that’s held him apart is peeling back, and despite the days he’s spent in hospital Merlin still isn’t prepared for how it slithers into his gut, an inkling of how he’ll feel if Arthur never races again.

Merlin swings his feet up from the floor and lies back on the sofa cushions sideways. Skiing is Arthur’s life, but it’s more than that. Skiing was going to be Arthur’s life the moment he was born to a man like Uther. But Merlin’s seen Arthur’s face light up when he talks about it, how the love he carries for fresh powder and a newly waxed pair of skis fills his entire being. Arthur, for Merlin, _is_ skiing; he’s become it, taken it into himself, and it’s shaped him until Merlin can’t think of anything else Arthur would be happy doing. Merlin’s never been much of one for fate, but he’d believe that Arthur’s destiny is skiing, that he was made for it in the best of all ways. 

Merlin thinks about the fight in Arthur’s house, thinks about what Arthur had said, what he’d said, and he feels small, terrible, as if he’s killed something delicate. 

Morgana comes back, surprising him before he can sink any deeper into reflection, and he’s grateful. He doesn’t want to think about Uther and Arthur and how, maybe, Merlin had been just as cruel as they were. 

“You haven’t eaten,” Morgana reproves. “Do I need to put the soup in the blender and pour it down your throat?”

“I’m really not hungry,” Merlin tries, but she makes him eat a few more slow spoonfuls before finally allowing him to plead exhaustion and hide beneath the covers of her guestroom bed.

Arthur’s slept here, Merlin thinks. Arthur’s walked around Morgana’s flat and sat on her sofa and been plied with food and cups of tea, and it makes Merlin feel a little warmer to think that even here there’s a tiny thread which ties him to Arthur, frail but steady.

Morgana spends the next two days calling people and swearing in French. Merlin mostly avoids Mordred—now he sees why Arthur didn’t like the damn dog—and looks out the window at the unfamiliar skyline. He’s always wanted to wander around Paris, to be a proper tourist, but now he doesn’t have the energy for it. He hasn’t slept much: the catnaps at the hospital had been good for keeping away nightmares, but now when he lies down the fear he keeps back during the day is waiting for the moment he closes his eyes to show him all the ways things can go wrong. He paces at night, and during the day he sits and listens to Morgana throw pans against the tiled walls of her kitchen and demand, over and over: “ _Je suis sa sœur. Je veux le voir._ ”

Merlin’s staring comfortably into the middle distance, considering the early afternoon clouds and possibility of a winter rain later, when Morgana taps him on the shoulder.

“Come on,” she says, her voice tightly controlled. “We’re going to the hospital.”

By the time that thought processes, Merlin has to run to catch up to her—she’s thrown on a red coat which drapes around her like a cloak and grabbed her leather gloves, and he’s barely shut the passenger door of her car when she steps on the accelerator and takes off. Merlin clings to the seat, eyes shut, and wishes he felt secure enough to let go and buckle his seat belt.

“Morgana,” he says after they’ve parked, chasing her inside. “Morgana, what’s happened? What’s going on?”

“Follow me,” she says, which isn’t helpful, but before Merlin can ask she’s arguing with the orderly who grabs her arm before she can push by him out of the reception area into the hospital proper. Merlin knows three ways around this particular orderly, but he has no idea what they’re doing here or why Morgana wants to go through, so he keeps quiet.

“Stay here,” Morgana orders, not even looking to see if Merlin’s going to obey, and he glares at her back as she disappears. He doesn’t go anywhere, though, just leans against the wall and exchanges a nod with the receptionist—Cecilia, he thinks her name is; she’d brought him croissants and a little thermos of sweet coffee once. 

He’s counting the ceiling tiles for the fifteenth time and wondering whether Morgana has maybe left without him when a nurse comes in and calls his name.

“Merlin,” the nurse calls, looking around the room. No one moves. “Merlin Emrys?” Merlin’s looking at him because he’s the most interesting thing to happen in the last hour, since a woman had come in looking for A&E leading a very pale child with bright green hands, but between the accent and the fact that Merlin’s given up on anyone telling him anything, Merlin doesn’t register that it’s _his_ name. 

The nurse consults a paper with a frown. “Merlin Emrys?” he calls again, and this time Merlin feels the shock of recognition, nearly trips over his own feet as the lurking fear rushes back into all of his limbs and sends his heart pounding unbearably fast.

“Yes,” Merlin says, scrambling toward the nurse before he can leave. “Uh, _oui. C’est moi_.”

The nurse looks him up and down critically, and rolls his eyes. “ _Suivez-moi_ ,” he says, beckoning Merlin after him, and Merlin obeys, following him through halls which shouldn’t be as familiar as they are, past the room Merlin had hidden in and onward past the place he’d seen Uther. He can’t imagine where he’s being taken—maybe the ward they lock the nutters in, because Merlin’s obviously a nutter, coming every day with no purpose except to wait for news that no one will tell him anyway. Maybe they’re taking him—

Christ, he thinks, stopping as his heart stops in his chest for a moment. Maybe he’s being led to the morgue, maybe that’s why Morgana had looked so pale and drawn, maybe that’s why she hadn’t told him anything. Arthur is already gone, cold and dead on a gurney somewhere, and Merlin can’t take that, can’t see Arthur laid out to be poked and prodded and taken apart before being buried in the frozen ground somewhere, not when Merlin’s last words were cruel ones. It’s a selfish urge, but in this moment he’s never wanted Arthur alive more: he needs Arthur alive so he can take it back, take it all back, so he won’t have that fight weighing on him the rest of his life, a regret that will never fade.

The nurse leads him for what feels like miles of white corridor, bustling with people working and gossiping. Here and there Merlin catches the eye of a pale family member, dark circles under their eyes and polystyrene cups of greasy coffee in their hands; sometimes they’re walking with a patient down the corridor, three of them holding their loved one up and another pushing the IV behind. There’s nothing left of the distance he’d felt before. The space he’d tried to keep around himself has melted away into nothing, because now the nurse is stopping before a closed door, rapping smartly before pushing it open, and there—

There’s Arthur, lying down and looking frail but alive. Jesus, he’s alive; his eyes are open and he’s looking at Merlin, and Merlin wants to fall to his knees and fucking _weep_.

Merlin isn’t sure what happens for a few moments. He ends up standing at the foot of Arthur’s bed; the nurse is gone, the door is closed, and they’re staring at each other in silence.

Arthur’s head is wrapped in bandages. Most of his body is covered with a sheet, though Merlin can he has one arm in a cast from fingers to shoulder, but Merlin focuses on the bandages covering Arthur’s skull. It’s as if all the buzzing terror has concentrated on this, and all Merlin can think is that Arthur must be bald under his bandages, that they’ve shaved off all of the golden hair Merlin had buried his fingers in so many time; the hair he’s tugged at, yanked while he gasped and shaken and come apart, or just stroked while the two of them lazed around, content. It makes him think about why the doctors shaved it: he can’t help but imagine Arthur’s hair matted and dulled with blood, even though he knows it’s nonsense, knows Arthur’s helmet would have protected him—the bandages are for his forehead, where they’d put in something like twenty stitches.

Arthur’s face is still bruised, swollen—the basher bar had broken and been ripped away; he’d lost his goggles in the fall, had nothing to protect his face but his arm, until it had broken too—and it’s hard for Merlin to tell what Arthur’s thinking, what he should say. In the end, Arthur speaks first.

“They told me there was a lunatic scaring everyone in the waiting room, asking about me and refusing to leave,” Arthur says, and his voice is terrible, wrecked and hoarse, but it’s _real_ , it’s really Arthur, and Merlin has to hold himself together by the strings or he’ll shatter all to pieces. “I figured it must be you.”

“Excuse me,” Merlin says, very carefully, and runs. 

He vomits in the tiny bathroom, and stays shuddering over the toilet for a long time, resting his forehead on the cool porcelain, until he hears shifting sounds. He knows Arthur is enough of an idiot to try getting out of bed to check on him, so he goes back and hovers between the bed and the bathroom until Arthur gets annoyed, which takes all of a few seconds.

“For God’s sake, sit down,” Arthur says. “What the fuck are you doing in France?”

There’s no chair, so Merlin perches gingerly at the very end of Arthur’s bed. “I would have thought it was obvious, isn’t it?” He’d planned to say more, about how awful he’d felt and how he hadn’t really meant anything he’d said at New Year’s... but now, looking it Arthur, he remembers that he _had_ meant it, most of it anyway, and he can’t bring himself to confess yet that he’d wished for Arthur to fall.

Arthur narrows his eyes, studying Merlin. “Why do you look like Morgana dressed you?”

“Um,” Merlin says, looking down at his tailored trousers. “Because she did?”

“Morgana’s here?”

Merlin nods. “She found me and made me go home with her two days ago.”

“Two days ago?” Arthur asks, staring at Merlin. “Where were you before that?”

“Here,” Merlin says.

“Since _when_?”

Merlin has to think, counting back. “A week ago, maybe. Maybe more.”

“But I’ve only been here—” Merlin watches Arthur’s face, watches understanding wash across it, and feels uncomfortably exposed.

“Your father’s here, too,” he says, to distract Arthur, remembering Uther’s nod. 

Arthur looks away. “I know. I haven’t seen him.”

“Morgana said,” Merlin ventures, and hesitates, because he isn’t sure it’s his place anymore. “She said you changed coaches.”

Arthur doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look at Merlin. He keeps staring at the wall with the tiny window, long enough that Merlin wonders if he should leave. The rain’s come with a vengeance, slashing down hard enough against the panes that Merlin can’t tell what the window looks out over. He doesn’t move.

“I missed you,” Arthur says after a long silence, his voice so low Merlin can barely hear it. “I missed you every fucking day. Every fucking—do you know how that feels?”

“Yes,” Merlin says, but Arthur isn’t listening.

“I didn’t believe you when you were telling me about your mum,” Arthur tells the wall, and Merlin shuts up. “I didn’t believe she could still be so amazing even after you’d fought and fallen out. I’d always thought it went two ways: you did what your parents said, and maybe you hated it but at least they were still there, at least they were still speaking to you; or you did what you wanted and they threw you out on your ear. But then I saw you, and your mum, and the two of you—it was like a film. Like something I was watching in the cinema, not real life.

“But I thought about it, after. I watched the two of you. Skiers—we’re all travelling, all the time, you know? We have homes but we don’t settle down, and some of us handle that well and some of us don’t. I looked at you, and I wanted that, what you had.” Arthur picks at the sheet, at a thread that’s pulling loose, and Merlin lays a careful hand on Arthur’s ankle.

“Arthur—”

“I wanted to have things out with my father,” Arthur says, looking at Merlin with a sudden gesture, speaking louder. Merlin barely controls the startled jump of his muscles. “Skiing was my choice as much as his, but I wanted to control it. You were right about that: I’m a grown man. I want to make my own choices. But when he found us in the restaurant...” He trails off again, closing his eyes, and Merlin almost takes his hand away, afraid maybe the slight pressure of his fingers is somehow causing Arthur more pain.

“I was ashamed,” Arthur says, his eyes still closed, as if he needs to shut Merlin out to be able to say this. “You’d fought with your mum and done what you wanted, and I was completely unprepared. I didn’t want you to see me like that—and when you tried to speak up it just made everything worse. I wanted to fight my own battles.” He looks at Merlin again but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “We fought; you left. I fought with my father after that, and he said you were—well,” Arthur says with a ghastly smile. “Let’s not talk about what he called you. I fired him. I didn’t know I could do that; he’d written the contract, and I’d figured there weren’t any escape hatches. But after that... I couldn’t look at him after that. So I found a notary and she found a clause somewhere and I found a new coach. And then,” he adds, waving an expressive hand around the tiny room, making the IV hooked up to his arm wobble, “I ended up here.”

“I’m sorry,” Merlin says, because it feels like he might vomit again.

Arthur frowns at this. “I was a prick, and then I was an idiot and distracted and I fell while I was busy thinking about how I didn’t want to call you because it felt too much like crawling; you’ve nothing to be sorry about.”

Merlin chokes, because that—that’s exactly how he feels, how he felt until he’d thought that maybe Arthur was dead, and then it had been worth all the crawling in the world. “I’m sorry I was a bastard about your father; I wish I hadn’t said all those things, about you falling and everything. When I saw the news—when I saw you were—you can’t ever know how that felt, knowing you were in surgery when the last thing I said to you was that I hoped you would crash.”

“I know exactly how it feels,” Arthur argues. “Or near enough; can you imagine how it felt to come back and see all of your things gone, nothing of you left for me?”

“I took your jumper.”

“I know. Bastard. I liked that jumper.”

“I didn’t realise I had it, not ’til I was home. But you said you liked it better on me, anyway.”

Arthur smiles. “I did.”

Merlin’s leaning further forward, inching closer to Arthur, and Arthur’s half raised up; they’re going to kiss, Merlin knows it, can feel it coming, and it’s going to fix everything that’s gone wrong between them, but Arthur winces, coughs, and suddenly there’s a different nurse there, pushing Arthur back down and adjusting dials until the pain in Arthur’s face eases again. She gives Merlin a forbidding look, as if she’s thinking about whether it’s worth the trouble to throw him out, but when Arthur clears his throat she leaves without a word.

“Morphine,” Arthur says when she’s gone, though Merlin hasn’t asked. “Just a little, for the pain. They’ll take me off it soon and put me on something else.” He sighs. “Broken ribs, battered organs—they said I knocked my kidneys around pretty well—cracked collarbone; shattered wrist and elbow, bruised pelvis but at least it’s not broken, thank God.”

Thank God, Merlin thinks, thank God Arthur’s here, listing his injuries even though he’s getting fuzzy, mixed up, forgetting he’s already said things. 

“Elbow broken, told you that, didn’t I? And the spleen... something about that and the thingy, the one with the sticky-out bit. Spleen’s a funny word, Merlin.”

It must be the morphine, Merlin realises. “Arthur,” he says, gentle. “I think you should go to sleep.”

Arthur squints at him. “’F I go to sleep, you’ll be gone.”

“I’ll stay here,” Merlin says. “I’ll stay unless they make me leave.”

“No,” Arthur says, enunciating clearly. “You have to stay, Merlin, tell them you can’t go ’way again.” He holds out a hand. Merlin looks at it stupidly until Arthur gives him a demanding look, and Merlin realises Arthur wants to _hold his hand_. He scoots further up the bed and takes Arthur’s unbroken hand in his, pressing his lips to Arthur’s knuckles. Arthur clutches at him, too tight, his palm all sweaty, and goes to sleep.

Morgana looks into the room after a few hours, just when Merlin’s arm has turned completely numb and he’s wondering if Arthur will wake up if he moves. He eases himself off the bed in relief, and goes to the door to talk to her.

“They’d only let one person in to see him,” she says, her eyes on Arthur and her voice quiet. “I thought it should be you, since I’d already seen him.”

Merlin shifts on his feet, a little uncomfortable, but he can’t muster up anything like regret. “Thank you.” He doesn’t tell her that Arthur doesn’t remember her visit.

“How is he?”

“He’s going to be fine,” Merlin says, looking back at Arthur.

“And you?”

Merlin turns back to her; she’s standing a little too close, her eyes focused on his face, and he has to fight not to take a step back. He looks at Arthur again instead. “We’ll be okay, I think,” he says, not trusting himself to say more.

Arthur moves then, reaches out his good hand as if to grab for something—someone—his face pulling into a frown. Merlin’s three steps toward him before he remembers it’s rude to leave conversations in the middle of speaking.

“Go,” Morgana says when he stops. “I’ve seen what I needed to.”

Merlin flashes a quick half-smile which feels awkward on his face, and perches next to Arthur again, taking his hand. When he turns around, Morgana’s gone.

*

Merlin sleeps in the hospital room, after Arthur throws a dignified tantrum and refuses to let the nurses throw him out. They find a chair somewhere, and Merlin’s sure it’s the most uncomfortable chair they could get their hands on but at least it’s a place to sit. He curls up in it to sleep and stays there while the days stretch on, living off of what Arthur doesn’t eat and whatever Morgana brings him, using the shower in Arthur’s room and wearing the clothes Morgana gives him. Arthur is a slow healer, but a stubborn one—forget doctors, Merlin thinks, the fifth time Arthur gets up to walk down the hall and is ushered back in a wheelchair by stern orderlies; Arthur is probably the worst patient ever. Merlin feels justified in never leaving the room, because when he does leave Arthur does stupid things like refuse to take his medicine or subject the nurses to harangues detailing every flaw in their quality of care.

“Christ, you are such a bastard,” Merlin tells him, watching the newest nurse scuttle around the corners of the room, checking Arthur’s vital signs with a minimum of actual contact. “I liked Celeste; what was wrong with her?”

Arthur scowls at the new nurse—Merlin thinks her name is Jacqueline, or maybe Jeanne—while she wraps the blood pressure cuff around his arm. “I didn’t like the way she looked at me. She put something in my food.”

Merlin folds his arms across his chest. “They have a name for that, you know,” he says, conversationally. “It’s called paranoia, and I think they have a very nice locked ward for people who have it.”

“I am _not_ paranoid—”

“Stop getting rid of nurses you don’t like,” Merlin instructs, “and maybe I won’t ask them to transfer you, instead.”

Arthur’s scowl grows deeper, the wrinkles on his forehead more furrowed.

“Your face is going to stick like that, and then no one will want you selling their products,” Merlin points out, and Arthur makes a truly atrocious face. Merlin gives him a cheerful smile, and waits.

“Fine,” Arthur says at last. “But they’d better let me out of here, soon, or I really will go mad.”

When they do let Arthur out—a week earlier than his doctors had wanted, but Arthur’s never let that stop him before—they extract a mountain of promises and signed forms from him before letting him walk out the doors. Or, well, roll.

“I can _walk_ ,” Arthur grumbles while Merlin pushes the wheelchair, appreciating the fact that all the doors in the hospital are automatic. “Jesus, there isn’t anything wrong with my _legs_.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, as nicely as he can while he’s concentrating on turning left, because these things are trickier to operate than they seem, and he’s already nearly run Arthur into a little old lady and a display of flowers outside of the gift shop. “What did we agree about whining?”

Arthur mutters what Merlin is sure are very clever, no doubt highly complimentary remarks under his breath, and pulls out his mobile. 

There’s a sleek black car waiting to meet them in front of the hospital, and the driver—in an expensive suit and white gloves—chats with Arthur while Merlin stares out the window at the neighbourhoods they’re driving through. He’d assumed they would go to Morgana’s, but the house they pull up in front of is a beautiful narrow place, three stories, with intricate iron railings and planters in front of every window—a house Merlin had forgotten _existed_.

“Arthur?” he hisses.

“Come on,” Arthur says, oblivious. “We’re home.”

Arthur goes to sleep before even giving Merlin the tour; he merely waves out a few rooms of interest before nearly collapsing onto one of the settees in the main room, still protesting, unwilling to let on how much the short journey had tired him, and Merlin’s left to explore on his own. The first floor is all open, mostly empty except for the kitchen, and Merlin can’t see much from the windows, so he walks up to the third floor, pressing his hand over the smooth wood of the railing. The narrow library on the second floor is full of old books and overstuffed chairs and curtained windows, and Merlin pauses there for a few minutes, trailing his fingers over the titles and sifting through some of the papers scattered over Arthur’s desk: invitations and statements and letters, which Merlin looks over but doesn’t quite dare read. Arthur’s bedroom is all creams, from the blankets to the walls, and small—smaller than the bedroom Merlin had used in Morgana’s place, though it’s still larger than Merlin’s own. That’s all there is to the house: it feels small, cosy, a place for Arthur to spend a few days in, here and there, recuperating or visiting or on the way to somewhere else.

Merlin can see the sunset and a corner of Sacre Cour from the window at the top of the stair, so he tucks himself up onto the ledge there, staring out at the slate roof and the city beyond and wondering what’ s supposed to happen now. 

He should go home, he knows. He should start sorting out the mess he’s undoubtedly made of his life; he’s not sure he even has a job any more. When he left, he’d called Gaius from the airport and told him he needed some time for a family emergency—he’s sure Gaius has called his mum and maybe between the two of them they’ve figured it out, but Merlin hasn’t turned his mobile on since his plane left British soil, so he has no idea what’s happened since he left. He hasn’t even spoken to Gwen or Freya or even Will since coming here. There’s been nothing but Arthur since the first, awful moments of hearing the news. 

Merlin can’t regret coming, but now Arthur maybe doesn’t need him anymore. Arthur will have this house to knock about in while he recovers—though Merlin isn’t sure how he’ll get up and down the steep stairs—and Morgana to help him; physical therapists and probably a staff as well, and he won’t need Merlin to hover around uselessly, getting in the way of everyone else.

There’s a draft coming through the window, ice crusting a few corners of the panes outside, and Merlin shivers. He should go back downstairs where it’s warmer, maybe poke through the kitchen for something to feed Arthur when he wakes up. In the morning, Merlin decides, he’ll make his excuses and leave Arthur to recuperate, let them both breathe for a little while before they figure out where they stand with each other. He’s been saving Arthur’s words, holding them close in his chest until he can mull through them, figure out what was truth and what was the morphine talking, and how far each mingled with the other. It’s still true, what he’d said to Morgana: they’ll sort themselves out, but Merlin’s sure Arthur’s bedside while he complains and curses through recovery isn’t the place for it. It’ll be better for both of them if they take a little break and come back to all of this later.

With that decided, Merlin slides down from the ledge and traces his steps back downstairs, thinking about checking on Arthur just for a second before finding something for dinner, but he ends up in a chair near Arthur in the half-dark, watching Arthur breath and feeling his eyelids grow heavier and heavier until he gives in and lets sleep cover him. 

*

“Fuck! Fucking fucker fuck _fuck_!”

Merlin flounders his way out of sleep, dragging himself up to see what’s gone wrong, what’s on fire or broken, while Arthur swears in French and possibly Russian and crashes around somewhere close. Merlin runs toward where the noise is, stumbling, still half-asleep, and finds chaos in the kitchen.

“Arthur,” he says, holding onto the doorway because otherwise he might fall over, “what happened?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. Merlin doesn’t really need him to—the kitchen speaks for itself. There’s a pan full of half-cooked eggs upended on the floor, an assortment of badly chopped vegetables on the worktop, milk on Arthur’s shirt, and a block of cheese sitting forlornly near the wine glasses, forgotten. Arthur stands in the middle of it all, looking frustrated and angry, his arm in a sling and his fringe not quite covering where the stitches were removed.

“Oh, Arthur.”

“I hate this,” Arthur says, not looking at Merlin, and Merlin leads him to one of the wooden stools nearby, pressing him down into it gently.

“I’ll take care of it.”

He mops up the eggs while Arthur watches, sticks the pan in the sink and puts the cheese and vegetables away, looking through the cupboards until he finds some stale bread he can make into toast. 

“It was just an omelette,” Arthur says, determinedly spreading jam onto his toast one-handed. The bread keeps slipping off the plate, but Merlin knows better than to help. “I was making breakfast for you.”

Merlin scrapes butter onto his own toast. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

They crunch their way through the toast in silence. It had started raining again, sometime before Merlin woke up; he watches it streak down the windows and thinks about leaving.

They hadn’t bothered to use dishes, so when they’re finished Merlin only twists the cap back onto the jam—loosely, so Arthur will be able to open it with one hand—and sticks it back in the refrigerator with the butter before wiping crumbs off the worktop. Arthur’s back on the settee, his eyes closed while he talks to someone about setting up appointments. Merlin sits near him, smoothing his hands over his knees, over the fabric of the latest trousers Morgana had ordered him to wear: wrinkled now but still undoubtedly expensive.

Arthur hangs up and tosses the phone to the other corner of the settee, stretching his legs out and wincing. He drags a red blanket out from behind him and drapes it over his knees. “Pieter will be here around eleven; if we call him before he’ll pick things up for us. Do you need anything?”

“No,” Merlin says, because he has everything he needs right here, and he’s about to let go of it again. Temporarily, he reminds himself. It’s only temporary, just until Arthur recovers. “Listen, Arthur—”

“We should probably find you some clothes,” Arthur muses. “I suppose I’ll have to force Morgana to hand over everything she’s already bought for you, or she’ll only use it to lure you back over to hers...”

“Arthur.” Arthur stops talking, looking at Merlin expectantly. “I was thinking,” Merlin starts. “I should—you have everything you need, you don’t need me taking up space. Gaius will be worrying about me. I should go home.”

There is a moment where Arthur looks shattered, vulnerable—but then it’s gone. “You’ll do as you wish, of course.”

“Don’t go all posh git on me now,” Merlin pleads. “It’s only, well; you’ll have all your people here looking after me, and I’ll be in the way. And I didn’t even let people know I was leaving, Arthur.”

“That’s what phones are for,” Arthur says, “and the internet. Merlin...” He’s sitting up straighter, good hand resting on his knee, and Merlin wishes he wouldn’t look at Merlin like that, like Merlin’s holding something fragile in his hands. “Do you really feel like you’re in the way?”

“I will be,” Merlin points out. “When your people—”

“Damn my people!” Arthur says. “Who the hell are they, anyway? I don’t have people, Merlin. _You’re_ my people.”

Merlin knows he probably looks witless, staring at Arthur with the expression peculiar to fish and the heroes of romantic comedies, but the most he can muster up is: “I’m only one person. I can’t be people.”

Arthur swears. “So help me, I will crush your skull if you can’t get this through your thick head. Did you think I was lying, in the hospital? Did you think I was just having a bit of fun, taking the mickey?”

Put that way, Merlin has to reconsider. And given the plea Arthur can’t hide behind the rebuke, Merlin’s forced to think that maybe he’s been an idiot again. “The morphine,” he says, and Arthur looks murderous. “Did you—I mean, I thought it was just for right then. We should straighten things out more, take time to—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says. “I fell halfway down a mountain and nearly died after spending weeks being miserable and irrationally angry at everyone. I’m done with _taking time_.”

“Oh,” says Merlin. “Good.” And then, feeling like that wasn’t quite sufficient, he offers: “I’m glad you meant it.”

Arthur looks at him like he’s possibly the stupidest person Arthur has ever had the misfortune to come across, and says, “Of course I meant it, you idiot. Of course I—”

Merlin doesn’t let him finish, just kisses him; he’s careful of Arthur’s arm and ribs but Arthur’s hand is sliding along his jaw, pulling him closer, and Merlin only takes the time to think _yes, this_ , before discarding thinking entirely. It doesn’t mean that everything went wrong will be magically better, because he and Arthur aren’t the kind of people to click suddenly into perfect harmony together, but Merlin’s quite sure that maybe they’ll be alright anyway, that maybe whatever they have here will be better by far, after all.

*


	9. Epilogue

:::

_Epiphanies are little errors and gestures—mere straws in the wind—by which people betray the very things they were most careful to conceal._

_They are the sudden revelation of the whatness of a thing, the moment when the soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.  
_

:::

 

Merlin stretches out on the bed, kicking his shoes off while he watches Arthur carefully undress, stripping out of the clothing that’s been engineered to give him every advantage fabric possibly can. The bed is narrower than the one they have at home, shorter than the one they brought from Arthur’s house to the flat they’d signed both their names for, and Merlin’s feet dangle off the end. They’re in Russia, a hundred fights and slammed doors behind them as Arthur fought to get back to the top of competitive racing and Merlin fought him because he’s used two of his lives now, and only cats have nine. Merlin’s threatened to leave fifteen times and followed through twice and is still here anyway, because Arthur does stupider things when Merlin isn’t around to keep him somewhat in check.

“That publishing woman called again,” he says, and Arthur snorts.

“I don’t see why they keep calling.”

“She left her number.”

“I hope you threw it out. They all have to wait at least another year.”

They’ve fought about this too, about Arthur’s absolute refusal to slow down until he’s smashed every record still standing, about Arthur’s blindness when he says he wants to wait to publish his autobiography until he has something truly spectacular to write about, but Merlin doesn’t want to fight now, not today. 

“Stop worrying,” he says. “Come to bed.”

These things matter, the words and quarrels that fill the space between them; it all matters. Merlin isn’t sure they’ll make it, some days, but all of it loses importance when they’re wrapped up together and Merlin can run his fingers over Arthur’s body, scarred and battered and still whole beneath him, beside him, and Arthur’s wrist will always ache with the cold but you’d never know that the way he touches Merlin, the way he can still bring Merlin to whimpers in a moment. 

In the morning, Merlin will go out to watch Arthur race, trapped in the crowd in an agony of fear and nerves, and Arthur will ski brilliantly, and Merlin will kiss him at the end in front of the cameras. Uther will be there; he’ll shake his son’s hand awkwardly and look like he’s been force fed a bucket of lemons but he’ll be there anyway, supporting Arthur anyway. The commentators have been talking for months about the next Olympics, Arthur’s chances in the World Championship; they’re already painting Arthur as a serious contender: a giant risen from the ashes, his technique still perfect, his line just a little faster, a little better than anyone else’s. And after the day is over, after Arthur has bent his head to receive his newest medal, Merlin will take Arthur home and they’ll do a little celebrating of their own, because they’ve fought too hard for this not to appreciate it when they can. 

_This one_ , Merlin thinks—he still doesn’t quite believe it, but it’s a little surer with every passing day, a little easier as it slips through his mind and off his tongue. _This one; the one_.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quotes in the epilogue and the title were adapted from James Joyce; the song lyrics are all from songs on the mix, with the addition of Coldplay in Part 8. You are now free to judge me as you will. ;)
> 
> I should restate that although I did at one point dip my toes in the very edges of the skiing world, and while I have tried to make this as accurate as possible, I have no inside access to the world of world-class skiing and bent a few things to make the fiction bit work a little better -- though hopefully there are no outrageous inaccuracies. Apologies for any that remain. Also I beg the pardon of any friends across the Pond who noticed rampant Americanisms that slipped through the cracks; one does one's best, but the mother tongue holds strong even in the same language.
> 
>  
> 
> By unhappy necessity I worked largely on my lonesome during the creation of this story (it is not my favourite way to write and requires many more tears and fainting fits than usual /o\\), but there are a few wonderful people who deserve recognition, bouquets, and standing ovations for everything they do:
> 
> ♥ First and foremost, my darling snottygrrl, who started this all; who long ago discovered how to wire things directly to my fic-writing hind brain and short-circuit the whole system in favour of a particular idea, and who does not hesitate to exploit that advantage, to my half-hearted consternation and very great joy;  
> ♥ the_muppet, who truly was the best of all mods, without whom this wonderful fest would not exist, and who despite running something so huge keeps it organised and takes the time to reach out and make sure no one is left behind through internetlessness and their own forgetfulness;  
> ♥ chibirhm, who shows me all the best things the internet has to offer, to whom I routinely break my fic promises because I am a terrible lying liar who lies, but who nevertheless continues to be amazing always and a pro at getting my favourite fuzzy nephews to guilt me into writing whenever I start to whine;  
> ♥ anowlinsunshine, who has always and ever been a fantastic resource and sounding board, and who at the eleventh hour graciously stepped in to soothe my fears and help me fix weak spots;  
> ♥ And finally, corvus_noir: the Yzma to my Kronk, the crunchy frog in my box of chocolates, the other half of my brain; who reads every single thing I write and sits patiently while I agonize over freckles or commas or the exact shape of the landscaping, and who threatens people with vicious shin-kicking for me from halfway around the world.
> 
> You are the best of the best, my loves; some of the brightest lights of my life. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.
> 
> chosenfire28 gets a special shout-out for providing the amazing art in this piece, and for being fabulously patient dealing with a flaky author and getting all the little pieces of this monster ready for you all: all the banners, icons, and the fanmix were 100% the results of her hard work. Please don’t forget to [check out the art](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/217811.html) and tell her how fantastic she is!
> 
> A final thanks to you as well, dear readers; thank you for taking the time to read all of the 2378957 words this monster grew. You all make the world a better place. ♥


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